17 Bible Verses about Distinguishing

Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come close, that I may feel you, my son, whether you are really my son Esau or not.”

But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.

and they sent the varicolored tunic and brought it to their father and said, “We found this; please examine it to see whether it is your son’s tunic or not.”

Watch, if it goes up by the way of its own territory to Beth-shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we will know that it was not His hand that struck us; it happened to us by chance.”

The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan opposite Ephraim. And it happened when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead would say to him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he said, “No,” then they would say to him, “Say now, ‘Shibboleth.’” But he said, “Sibboleth,” for he could not pronounce it correctly. Then they seized him and slew him at the fords of the Jordan. Thus there fell at that time 42,000 of Ephraim.

You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?

So then, you will know them by their fruits.

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.

Moses said, “By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not my doing. If these men die the death of all men or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord.”

By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away.

For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God;

We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.