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We Shall Not Lie, or Bear False Witness, February 27
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Exodus 20:16
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The ninth commandment requires of us an inviolable regard for exact
truth in every declaration by which the character of our fellow men may
be affected. The tongue, which is kept so little under the control of the
human agent, is to be bridled by strong conscientious principles, by the
law of love toward God and man
False-speaking in any matter, every attempt or purpose to deceive our
neighbor, is here included. An intention to deceive is what constitutes
falsehood. By a glance of the eye, a motion of the hand, an expression of
the countenance, as falsehood may be told as effectually as by words. All
intentional overstatement, every hint or insinuation calculated to convey an
erroneous or exaggerated impression, even the statement of facts in such a
manner as to mislead, is falsehood. This precept forbids every effort to
injure our neighbor’s reputation by misrepresentation or evil surmising, by
slander or tale-bearing. Even the intentional suppression of truth, by which
injury may result to others, is a violation of the ninth commandment
He [Jesus] teaches that the exact truth should be the law of speech.
“Let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay.” ... These words condemn all
those meaningless phrases and expletives that border on profanity. They
condemn the deceptive compliments, the evasion of truth, the flattering
phrases, the exaggerations, the misrepresentations in trade, that are current
in society and in the business world. They teach that no one who tries to
appear what he is not, or whose words do not convey the real sentiment of
his heart, can be called truthful....
Everything that Christians do should be as transparent as the sunlight.
Truth is of God; deception, in every one of its myriad forms, is of Satan....
We can not speak the truth unless our minds are continually guided by
Him who is truth
[65]
81
Letter 15, 1895
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82
Patriarchs and Prophets, 309
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83
Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, 105, 106
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