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Summary
- Matthew 3:8 in the King James Version reads “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance”; “meet” means fitting, and Luke 3:8 has “fruits worthy of repentance.”
- John the Baptist said it to Pharisees and Sadducees who came to his baptism, warning that descent from Abraham would not save them and that the axe was already at the root of the trees (Matthew 3:7–10).
- In Luke 3:10–14 John names the fruit: share clothes and food, collect no more tax than is owed, use no violence, accuse no one falsely and be content with wages.
- Zacchaeus gave half his goods to the poor and promised fourfold repayment to anyone he had cheated, more than the added fifth the law required (Luke 19:8; Numbers 5:7).
- Most Greek editions read the singular “fruit” in Matthew 3:8; the Textus Receptus behind the King James Version reads the plural “fruits.”
- The Catholic Catechism (1430) and the Reformed Westminster Confession (15–16) both teach that real repentance shows itself in deeds, each in its own terms.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Exodus 22:1; Numbers 5:7; Matthew 3:2–11; 7:16, 19; 12:34; 23:33; Mark 1:4; Luke 3:7–14; 19:2, 8–9; Acts 2:38; 19:4–5; 23:8; 26:20). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Greek texts of Matthew 3:8 and Luke 3:8 (SBL Greek New Testament, Nestle 1904, Westcott and Hort, Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Majority Text, Tischendorf, Scrivener’s and Stephanus’s Textus Receptus). Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/texts/matthew/3-8.htm ; https://biblehub.com/texts/luke/3-8.htm
- Thayer, Joseph Henry. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, entries μετάνοια (G3341), ἄξιος (G514) and καρπός (G2590), with Strong’s KJV translation counts. Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g3341/kjv/tr/0-1/ ; https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g514/kjv/tr/0-1/ ; https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g2590/kjv/tr/0-1/
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraph 1263: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3N.HTM ; paragraph 1430: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4A.HTM
- Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 15, sections 3 and 5; chapter 16, section 2; chapter 28, section 1. https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/
- Matthew 3:8 in the Douay-Rheims Bible, Clementine Vulgate, Reina-Valera 1909, Louis Segond 1910, Russian Synodal Translation and Smith and Van Dyck Arabic Bible. Bible Hub, “Matthew 3:8 Multilingual.” https://biblehub.com/multi/matthew/3-8.htm
- Matthew 3:8 in the Almeida Corrigida Fiel. Bíblia Online. https://www.bibliaonline.com.br/acf/mt/3
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