Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance:
Let your change of heart be seen in your works:
Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
Therefore bring forth fruit worthy of repentance!
Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance:
Bring forth therefore fruits ... - That is, the proper fruits of reformation; the proper evidence that you are sincere. Do not bring your cunning and dissimulation to this work; do not carry your hypocrisy into your professed repentance, but evince your sincerity by forsaking sin, and thus give evidence that this coming to Jordan to be baptized is not an act of dissimulation. No discourse could have been more appropriate or more cutting.
Fruits - Conduct. See Matthew 7:16-19.
Meet for repentance - Fit for repentance; appropriate to it the proper expression of repentance.
3:8 Repentance is of two sorts; that which is termed legal, and that which is styled evangelical repentance. The former (which is the same that is spoken of here) is a thorough conviction of sin. The latter is a change of heart (and consequently of life) from all sin to all holiness.