"By their friends shall ye know them"Since I haven't been able to find a reliable origin in nearly ten minutes of Google searching, I leave it to you, dear reader, to help me out. Upon discovering no immediately obvious origin, I was inclined to believe that this phrase was just a modification of a phrase from Mark, "By their fruits shall ye know them," that has been handed down for some time. But perhaps you'll discover something different. In fact, I hope you will. After all, I'd hate to see a phrase so poignant as this relegated to what I should think is a large pile of mis-translated sentences that simply stuck around.
If you find any of those, I'd enjoy mention of them, as well.
Hrm, I'd not heard the phrase. My first guess, of course, would be that it's a modification of Matthew 7:20. (Not to worry, I confuse my evangelists all the time. Except John; he tends to be rather distinctive.)
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