Matthew 23:31

31 So that ye testify to yourselves, that ye are sons of them who did murder 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 `Wo to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the tombs of the righteous,
30 and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
31 So that ye testify to yourselves, that ye are sons of them who did murder the prophets;
32 and ye -- ye fill up the measure of your fathers.
33 `Serpents! brood of vipers! how may ye escape from the judgment of the gehenna?
Young's Literal Translation is in the public domain.