Q source
The parable appears in three major works, suggesting it was possibly in the Q source, a hypothetical theorized document or source of sayings of Jesus from the oral tradition of early Christians that later gospel writers drew on. Matthew's version and the version in Luke and Thomas do not entirely line up; textual critics generally suspect it is more likely that it is Matthew's version that drifted from the original, as parts of it seem to be an explanation of the destruction of Jerusalem as divine punishment too closely. Matthew's version makes more sense for a church that has many more Gentiles in it than the one at the time of Jesus's death and additionally has knowledge of the outcome of the First Jewish–Roman War.