Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Ver. 31. Wherefore ye be witnesses, &c.] Here our Saviour casts all their cost in their teeth, as if thereby they had meant to commend their fathers' cruelty in killing the prophets, since they abetted it by persecuting him and his to the death. Malice is commonly hereditary, and runs in the blood; and (as we use to say of runnet) the older it is, the stronger; as in the deadly feud of Scotland taken away by King James.