Matthew 3:8

Matthew 3:8

Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

a. ASV: Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance:

b. YLT: Bear, therefore, fruits worthy of the reformation,

c. Classic Amplified: Bring forth fruit that is consistent with repentance [let your lives prove your change of heart];

1. “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:”

a. Bring forth [Strong: 4160. poieo poy-eh'-o apparently a prolonged form of an obsolete primary; to make or do (in a very wide application, more or less direct):--abide, + agree, appoint, X avenge, + band together, be, bear, + bewray, bring (forth), cast out, cause, commit, + content, continue, deal, + without any delay, (would) do(-ing), execute, exercise, fulfil, gain, give, have, hold, X journeying, keep, + lay wait, + lighten the ship, make, X mean, + none of these things move me, observe, ordain, perform, provide, + have purged, purpose, put, + raising up, X secure, shew, X shoot out, spend, take, tarry, + transgress the law, work, yield.]

b. therefore [Strong: 3767. oun oon apparently a primary word; (adverbially) certainly, or (conjunctionally) accordingly:--and (so, truly), but, now (then), so (likewise then), then, therefore, verily, wherefore.]

c. fruits [Strong: 2590. karpos kar-pos' probably from the base of 726; fruit (as plucked), literally or figuratively:--fruit.]

d. meet [Strong: 514. axios ax'-ee-os probably from 71; deserving, comparable or suitable (as if drawing praise):--due reward, meet, (un-)worthy.]

e. [Strong: 3588. [tes] ho ho, including the feminine he hay, and the neuter to to in all their inflections; the definite article; the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom):--the, this, that, one, he, she, it, etc.] [Thayer: [tes] ὁ, ἡ, τό, originally τος, τῇ, τό (as is evident from the forms τοι, ται for οἱ, αἱ in Homer and the Ionic writings), corresponds to our definite article the (German der, die, das), which is properly a demonstrative pronoun, which we see in its full force in Homer, and of which we find certain indubitable traces also in all kinds of Greek prose, and hence also in the N. T.]

f. [of] repentance [Strong: 3341. metanoia met-an'-oy-ah from 3340; (subjectively) compunction (for guilt, including reformation); by implication, reversal (of (another's) decision):--repentance.]

1). When a person comes to Christ, there will be evidence of a changed life, there will be fruits meet or worthy of repentance. Probably one of the best examples is Manasseh. 

a). 2 Chronicles 33:9-20 So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

33:10 And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken.

33:11 Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

33:12 And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

33:13 And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God.

33:14 Now after this he built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the fish gate, and compassed about Ophel, and raised it up a very great height, and put captains of war in all the fenced cities of Judah.

33:15 And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city.

33:16 And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.

33:17 Nevertheless the people did sacrifice still in the high places, yet unto the Lord their God only.

33:18 Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spake to him in the name of the Lord God of Israel, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel.

33:19 His prayer also, and how God was intreated of him, and all his sins, and his trespass, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up groves and graven images, before he was humbled: behold, they are written among the sayings of the seers.

33:20 So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house: and Amon his son reigned in his stead.

2). The Apostle Paul also wrote of it. 

a). 2 Corinthians 7:10, 11 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

11 For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.