Luke 3:9

God is ready to punish you if you do not turn away from your sinful behavior, just like a man [MET] lays his axe at the roots of a fruit tree to chop it down and throw it into the fire if it does not produce good fruit [MET].”

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

In Context

8Do what is appropriate for people who have truly turned from their sinful behavior! God promised to give Abraham many descendants. In order to fulfill that promise, God does not need you! I tell you that he can change these stones to make them descendants of Abraham! So do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We (exc) are descendants of Abraham, so God will not punish us, even though we have sinned!’

10Then various ones in the crowd asked John, “What shall we (exc) do to escape God punishing us (OR), to show that we have repented?”

Read all of Luke 3

Cross References

Ezekiel 15:2“You human, the wood of a grapevine is certainly not [RHQ] more useful that the branches of the trees in a forest.

Daniel 4:14The angel shouted, “Cut down the tree, and cut off its branches! Strip/Shake off all of its leaves, and scatter its fruit. Chase away the animals that are lying in the shade of the tree, and the birds that are in its branches.

Matthew 3:10God is ready to punish you if you do not turn away from your sinful behavior, just like a man who lays his axe at the roots of a fruit tree in order to chop it down and throw it into the fire if it does not produce good fruit [MET].”

Luke 13:7Then he said to the gardener, ‘Look here! I have been looking for fruit on this fig tree every year for the past three years, but there have been no figs. Cut it down! ◄It is just using up the nutrients in the soil for nothing!/Why should it continue using up the nutrients in the soil for nothing?► [RHQ]’

Luke 23:29I want you to know that there will soon be a time when people will say, ‘Women [SYN] who have never borne children or nursed babies are fortunate!’

Hebrews 10:28Everyone who rejected the laws that God gave Moses was mercilessly killed when at least two or three people testified that they had done that.

Matthew Henry on Luke 3:2-15

Ministry of John the Baptist. 1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judæa, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituræa and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, 2 Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. 3 And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; 4 As it is… Read the whole commentary →

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