Matthew 7:16. By their fruits ye shall know them. This order is more emphatic. This common figure is carried out in detail in Matthew 7:17-19.

Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? The fruits most highly prized in the East. From teachers we are to look for valuable fruit; but false teachers can only bear after their kind (Matthew 7:17-18), they are ‘thorns' and ‘thistles.' The productions of the bushes here named are said to resemble slightly the fruits spoken of in each case; the harsh spirit of the false teachers has been compared to the sharpness of the thorns, and their proselyting spirit to the adhesive quality of the thistle. The main point is, however, the impossibility of getting good fruit from ‘fruitless and forbidding plants. ‘

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Old Testament