“Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.”
The original word translated perversity in this verse literally means distortion. Distorting the truth, being dishonest, is done in so many ways. Sometimes it is done by outright lying. More often it is done by twisting facts to reflect something different than the actual truth. Other times it is by omission. Not giving all of the details s the listener can get the full context. Whatever it is this verse is actually restating the same point in two different ways. The key take away is don’t lie. However you might be tempted, always tell the unvarnished, unadulterated truth. This verse also wants us to avoid those who do not speak the full truth. Solomon reminds us, as did Jesus, that what comes out of a person’s mouth is often the clearest look we get of what is in a person’s heart. It was believed that as the heart was the keeper of the moral center of a person, their mouth could not operate different than to show what was in there. Many lives have been hurt and damaged by twisted, partial truths. Here we are implored to never tell them and not to listen to them. Today speak only the truth in love. #BeTheEdge
“For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Jesus
