Matthew 23:31

31 And so ye be in witnessing to yourselves [And so ye be into witnessing to yourselves], that ye be the sons of them that slew the prophets.

Matthew 23:31 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 23:31

Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves
Or "against yourselves", as the Syriac reads; for what they said was a plain acknowledgment, and a full confession, what their fathers had done, and whose offspring they were; and from whom better things were not to be expected; since they were their fathers' own children, and of the same temper and disposition with them: that ye are the children of them that killed the prophets.
They plainly owned, that their fathers killed the prophets, and that they descended from them; though they meant not so much to reproach, their ancestors, as to give themselves a greater character; yet it did not with those, that knew them; not with our Lord: for as their own words testified against them, that they were a seed of evildoers; their practices showed them to be of the same spirit and principles with their progenitors.

Matthew 23:31 In-Context

29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that build [the] sepulchres of prophets, and make fair the burials of just men,
30 and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been their fellows in the blood of prophets.
31 And so ye be in witnessing to yourselves [And so ye be into witnessing to yourselves], that ye be the sons of them that slew the prophets.
32 And full-fill ye the measure of your fathers. [And fill ye the measure of your fathers.]
33 Ye adders, and adders' brood [Ye serpents, fruits of adders], how shall ye flee from the doom of hell?
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.