Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness

A man can be ruined by a sentence. Not by a blow, not by theft, not by anything that leaves a mark a doctor could examine — by a sentence, spoken in a room he was not in, about a thing he did not do. And what makes this particular injury so cruel is that the victim frequently never learns what was said, cannot answer what he has not heard, and finds only that doors have quietly closed and that people look at him differently and he does not know why.

God has a great deal to say about this, and He says it with a severity that startles the modern reader. It is one of the ten commandments. It carried, under the law, a penalty that could reach as far as death. And it is placed by Scripture in the company of the very worst sins. This article sets out what God has said about the false witness, why He treats it so gravely, and, because this must be said too — what mercy is available to a person who has borne one.

1. Where God placed this commandment

Consider the company it keeps. When God wrote with His own finger on tables of stone, He gave ten commandments, and each of the last six protects something of a neighbour's: his life, his marriage, his property, and then this:

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." (Exodus 20:16)

Consider the company God put it in. It stands with murder, adultery and theft, not among the lesser matters, but among the things that destroy a man’s life.

And notice the last two words. Thy neighbour. The commandment is not about accuracy in the abstract. It is about what your words do to a particular person who has a name.

"These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." (Proverbs 6:16-19)

Read that list again and count. Of the seven things God hates, three concern the tongue: a lying tongue, a false witness, and the sowing of discord. Nearly half the list.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." (Exodus 20:16)

Notice the company God gave it. It stands with murder, adultery and theft, not with lesser matters, and not as an afterthought at the end of the list.

We do not naturally rank it there. A man who lies about his neighbour is not usually thought of as being in the same category as a man who kills him. God evidently thinks otherwise, and it is worth asking why.

Part of the answer is that this sin can accomplish what the others do. A false witness can take a man’s livelihood, his marriage, his standing, his liberty, and in some cases his life, and can do it without ever touching him.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." (Exodus 20:16)

It stands beside thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not steal. That placement is itself an argument. God evidently regards a man's reputation, and his standing in the sight of others, as belonging to him in the same way his life and his goods belong to him, and a false witness as a species of robbery and of killing.

And notice the direction of the offence: against thy neighbour. This commandment is not primarily about abstract truthfulness. It is about what our words do to a particular person.

2. What the sin actually covers

Many read this commandment narrowly, as a prohibition of perjury in a courtroom, and conclude that they have never come close to breaking it. But the law itself defines it far more widely:

The commandment is wider than perjury in a courtroom, and it is worth setting out what it takes in.

The outright lie about a person.

The true thing told in order to harm. Accuracy is not innocence. A fact repeated with the intent of damaging someone is still a weapon.

The half-truth: the detail selected, the context withheld, the version that is technically defensible and entirely misleading.

The passing on of what you have not verified.

"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." (Proverbs 18:13)

And the silence that lets a false impression stand when you could correct it. To hear a man slandered and say nothing is to lend him out.

"Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour." (Leviticus 19:16)

The commandment is broader than perjury in a courtroom, and Scripture makes that plain by the range of words it uses.

Direct lying about a person. The plain form, and the least common, because most people know it is wrong.

Repeating what you have not verified.

"Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness." (Exodus 23:1)

Raise a false report, and also carry one. The man who passes it on is named alongside the man who started it.

Talebearing.

"Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people." (Leviticus 19:16)

And selective truth. A report may be accurate in every detail and still leave a false impression, and Scripture treats the impression as the thing that matters. A man who says only the damaging half of what he knows has borne false witness with true facts.

"Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment." (Exodus 23:1-2)

Four distinct sins are named there, and they widen the commandment enormously.

Raising a false report. To start something untrue. Not necessarily under oath — simply to set a story moving.

Putting your hand with the wicked. To lend your support, your name, your credibility to someone else's false accusation. You did not invent it; you carried it. Scripture makes no distinction: the man who joins his hand to it has become an unrighteous witness himself.

Following a multitude to do evil. The crowd was already saying it, and it was easier to agree than to stand apart. This is perhaps the commonest form of all, and God removes the excuse explicitly. That everyone was saying it is precisely no defence.

Wresting judgment to follow the many. Adjusting your account of a matter to match what the room wants to hear.

So the commandment reaches the man who invents, the man who repeats, the man who nods along, and the man who shades his testimony to suit his company. Very few of us are safely outside that circle.

3. The severity of the penalty

Now to something that shows how gravely God regards it. The law laid down a procedure for a suspected false witness, and a penalty of a kind found nowhere else in the code.

God attached a penalty to this that tells you exactly how He weighs it.

"And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother." (Deuteronomy 19:18-19)

Read what that means in practice. A false witness in a capital case was to receive the death he had intended for the other man.

God does not treat the words as less serious than the deed. He treats them as the deed attempted.

"A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape." (Proverbs 19:5)

The same sentence appears twice in Proverbs, four verses apart, with the ending altered the second time: he that speaketh lies shall perish. Solomon says it, then says it again harder.

The penalty God attached to it tells you how seriously He took it.

"And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother." (Deuteronomy 19:18-19)

Read that carefully. The false witness received the penalty he had tried to bring on the other man. If he had accused someone of a capital crime, he died.

That is a startling provision, and it makes a point no lecture could. In God’s reckoning, attempting to destroy a man with words is the same act as destroying him.

"And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you." (Deuteronomy 19:20)

Where a witness was accused of testifying falsely, the judges were to make diligent inquisition: a careful, unhurried investigation. And if the witness were found to be false, then this:

"Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother; so shalt thou put the evil away from among you." (Deuteronomy 19:19)

Weigh what that means. The false witness received the punishment he had tried to bring on the innocent man. If he had accused his brother of theft, he bore the penalty for theft. If he had accused his brother of a capital crime, he bore the capital penalty. God attached to the lie the exact consequence the liar had intended for someone else.

"And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." (Deuteronomy 19:21)

Thine eye shall not pity. That is a hard sentence, and it was meant to be. And the reason is given in the following verse: that others should hear, and fear, and not do such a thing again.

Nowhere does the law treat any sin of the tongue more severely. God did not regard words as cheap, and He did not treat a manufactured accusation as a lesser class of assault.

4. What it looks like: three accounts in Scripture

The Bible does not leave this theoretical. It records what false witness actually does, and the three accounts have a great deal in common.

Three cases in Scripture, and it is worth seeing them together.

Naboth. A king wanted a vineyard. A queen arranged the machinery. Two men were found who would say the words.

"And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died." (1 Kings 21:13)

Stephen. The same method, centuries later, against a man whose face they described as an angel’s.

"And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law." (Acts 6:13)

And the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none." (Matthew 26:59-60)

Read the order of that verse, because it is damning. They did not weigh evidence and reach a verdict. They sought false witness... to put him to death. The verdict came first, and the witnesses were recruited to fit it.

A man who owned a vineyard. A king wanted the land; the owner would not sell it, because it was his family's inheritance and the law forbade the transfer. The king sulked. His wife arranged matters. Letters went out over the king's own seal to the elders of the man's own city, calling a fast, seating the man in a place of honour among his neighbours, and setting two worthless men before him to testify that he had blasphemed God and the king. They did it. He was taken outside and stoned, and the king went down to take possession of the vineyard.

Notice the machinery. A religious occasion was used as the setting. Respected local men carried out the sentence. The proceeding satisfied the letter of the law — there were two witnesses, exactly as required. Everything appeared orderly. And an innocent man was dead and his family dispossessed.

A trial by night. When the Lord Jesus Christ was arrested, the chief priests and the whole council sought false witness against Him to put Him to death, and Scripture records plainly that though many false witnesses came, they found none that served. The accounts kept contradicting one another. Eventually two came forward with a distorted version of something He had actually said, twisting a statement about the temple of His body into a threat against the building.

Notice that detail, because it is instructive. The most effective false witness is rarely a pure invention. It is a real sentence, moved out of its setting, with its meaning changed. That is far harder to refute than an outright fabrication, because the accused cannot say I never said it.

A deacon before the council. When Stephen preached, his opponents could not resist the wisdom by which he spoke, so they suborned men, which means they procured them, arranged for them, and set them up to say that he had spoken blasphemous words. And they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes first, so that a climate existed before the accusation was ever heard. He was stoned.

5. What the three have in common

Set the three accounts side by side and the same pattern appears each time.

Set the three side by side and the pattern is exact.

In every case the victim was innocent. That is what made the false witness necessary. Nobody needs to lie about a guilty man.

In every case it was done under a religious form. Naboth was charged with blasphemy. Stephen was charged with speaking against the holy place. The Lord Jesus Christ was tried by the council. Not one of these was a back-alley crime; each was conducted by men who considered themselves servants of God.

In every case other people went along with it. The elders of Jezreel did as Jezebel wrote. The council heard the witnesses and did not stop them. And a crowd shouted for a release they had not thought about.

That last point is the one that touches most of us. Very few people manufacture a false report. A great many pass it along, or say nothing while it does its work.

In every case, the false witness was organised rather than spontaneous — someone arranged it. In every case, it was clothed in legality and often in religion; the forms were observed. In every case, the atmosphere was prepared before the accusation was made, so that the hearers were ready to believe. And in every case, the target was a person whose existence was inconvenient to somebody with power.

That last point deserves attention. False witness is very seldom about truth. It is a tool, and it is picked up when someone has a result they want and cannot get honestly. The accusation is not the goal; the removal of the man is the goal.

6. Why God hates it so

Scripture gives us the reasons, and they are worth setting out plainly.

Ask why God ranks this with bloodshed, and three reasons stand out.

Because it destroys what cannot be rebuilt. Money can be repaid, property replaced, a wound healed. A reputation once broken is never quite restored, and the retraction never travels as far as the accusation.

Because it makes the liar the opposite of God. Truth is not merely something God approves; it is what He is. And Scripture names the other side plainly:

"He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)

A man bearing false witness is not merely breaking a rule. He is doing the family business of the wrong father.

And because it strikes at the innocent. The strong rarely need to slander. It is the weapon of choice against those who cannot answer back.

"False witnesses did rise up: they laid to my charge things that I knew not." (Psalm 35:11)

"These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." (Proverbs 6:16-19)

Count how many of the seven concern the tongue. A lying tongue. A false witness that speaketh lies. He that soweth discord among brethren. Three of the seven things God is said to hate are sins of speech about other people.

And God hates it because it is a counterfeit of His own character. He is the God of truth, and He calls the enemy of souls a liar and the father of it. A man bearing false witness is doing the devil’s specific work.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do... for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)

Because the damage cannot be recalled. Stolen goods can be returned; a false report cannot be. Once a thing is said, it travels, and it lives in the minds of people who will never hear the correction. A man may be cleared entirely and still find that the accusation outlives the acquittal.

Because it destroys what a man cannot rebuild alone. A person can recover from financial loss by working. He cannot restore his own reputation by any effort of his own, because the thing lost is in other people's minds and he has no access to it. This is a wound the victim is powerless to treat.

Because it harms far more than the target. Families are divided by it. Children hear things about a parent. Friendships of decades end without either party fully knowing why. The blast radius is enormous, and none of the additional casualties were even the intended target.

Because it corrupts the ones who repeat it. A false report requires carriers, and everyone who passes it on has taken a share in it.

And because of whose method it is. The Lord Jesus Christ said of the devil that he was a murderer from the beginning, that there is no truth in him, and that when he speaks a lie he speaks of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it. That is a solemn thing to weigh. When a man manufactures an accusation, he has not merely broken a rule; he has taken up a particular tool, and it is not God's.

"Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight." (Proverbs 12:22)

Note the pairing once again: abomination and delight. The straight dealer is not merely tolerated by God; he is a pleasure to Him.

7. The safeguards God built into His law

Because God knew this sin would come, He built protections into the judicial process, and they are worth knowing because they apply wherever people must weigh an accusation.

God did not merely forbid it. He built protections into the law that any honest man would still want applied to himself.

"One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established." (Deuteronomy 19:15)

One voice was never enough, however respectable the voice. And the same rule is carried into the New Testament and applied inside the church:

"Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses." (1 Timothy 5:19)

"He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him." (Proverbs 18:17)

That verse should be written over every conversation in which one side of a story has been told. The first account always sounds true, not because it is, but because there is nothing yet beside it.

God did not merely forbid it; He built protections into the law so that a man could not easily be destroyed by a tongue.

No conviction on one testimony.

"One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin... at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established." (Deuteronomy 19:15)

Diligent investigation required. The judges were commanded to make diligent inquisition, not to take an accusation at face value however respectable the accuser.

And the accused heard first.

"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him." (Proverbs 18:13)

"He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him." (Proverbs 18:17)

That last verse deserves to be framed. The first account always sounds convincing, not because it is true, but because it is unopposed. Every one of us has believed something at eleven o’clock that we would not have believed at noon, if we had waited for the other man.

The apostle Paul carried the same principle into the church, and applied it to those most likely to attract accusation:

"Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses." (1 Timothy 5:19)

Never on one testimony.

"One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established." (Deuteronomy 19:15)

Not should not. Shall not. A single accusation, however confident, however sincere, establishes nothing whatever. This principle is carried straight into the New Testament, where the apostle Paul instructs that an accusation against an elder is not even to be received except before two or three witnesses. Notice: not merely not acted upon, not received.

Diligent investigation. The judges were to search the matter out carefully. Not a quick impression. Not a decision taken while feelings were high.

Both parties present. In the procedure for a disputed testimony, both men were to stand before the priests and the judges. Both. The accused was to be in the room and able to answer.

And a warning about first impressions. Scripture observes drily that the one who states his case first seems right, until his neighbour comes and searches him out. Every one of us has formed a settled opinion on the strength of one account, delivered persuasively by someone we trusted. The Bible treats that as a known human failing and warns us about it directly.

8. The subtler forms

Most people who bear false witness would deny it sincerely, because the forms it usually takes do not feel like lying.

Most of us will never testify falsely in a court. Nearly all of us have done one of these.

Gossip with a concerned expression. The prayer request that carries information nobody needed. It has the form of care and the effect of slander.

"A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter." (Proverbs 11:13)

The unfavourable reading of a motive. You saw an action; you did not see a heart. Assigning the worse of two explanations, and repeating it, is bearing false witness with the facts intact.

Exaggeration. The story improved slightly with each telling until it is no longer what happened.

And the flattery that is a lie told to a man’s face, which Scripture treats as the same sin turned the other way round.

"A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet." (Proverbs 29:5)

Almost nobody reading this will ever perjure himself. The subtler forms are where we live.

The prayer request that carries the news. A concern that could not decently be told is told anyway, wrapped in something no one can object to.

The question that plants a doubt. Have you noticed anything odd about him lately? asserts nothing and accomplishes everything.

The silence that lets it stand. Saying nothing while a man is misrepresented in front of you is a form of testimony, and everyone in the room understands it.

The motive supplied. Reporting an action accurately and then explaining why he did it, when you cannot possibly know why.

And the forward. Sending on what you have not checked, to people who will assume you checked it.

"He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool." (Proverbs 10:18)

The true fact with the context removed. He did say it, but you have not mentioned what he was answering, or that he withdrew it an hour later, or that he was quoting somebody else in order to disagree.

The omission that changes everything. Everything you said was accurate. What you left out was the part that would have explained it.

The confident guess about motive. You reported the action correctly and then supplied the reason — because he wanted, because he was trying to — as though you had access to his heart. You do not. Nobody does.

The question that is an accusation. I don't know, but doesn't it seem strange that...? No claim has been made, and so nothing can be refuted, and yet the hearer walks away with the impression fully formed. This is one of the most effective methods there is, and one of the least likely to be repented of.

The unchecked repetition. You did not invent it and you did not verify it. You passed it on, perhaps with a genuine sigh of concern. But a report you have not checked is a report you have no right to move.

"He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends." (Proverbs 17:9)

Observe what that verse says about the effect: it separates very friends, not enemies, but people who were close. That is the characteristic damage of the repeated matter.

And silence when you know better. If a false report is circulating about someone and you are in a position to correct it and say nothing because it is awkward, your silence has become a form of testimony. The law required a man who could testify to speak.

9. "Let us just forget it"

Now a particular case, and it deserves its own section because it is common and because it is where an ordinary failure becomes something worse.

Suppose an accusation has been made and then found to be untrue. The evidence collapses; the witness is discredited; it becomes plain to everyone involved that the thing was not so.

What ought to happen is obvious. The accused should be publicly cleared — as publicly as he was accused, and the false report withdrawn by those who advanced it, and an apology made.

What often happens instead is a quiet decision to move on. Let us not dwell on that. Let us put it behind us. In any case, there were other concerns. The charge is dropped without ever being retracted; the cloud remains over the man; and a new grievance is produced to justify the position already taken.

That manoeuvre is not neutrality. It is the completion of the false witness rather than the repair of it. Consider what has actually occurred: the accusation did its work, the damage stands, and the accuser has been spared the cost of admitting it. Meanwhile the innocent man carries the residue for years, because everyone remembers that there was something, and nobody remembers that it was disproved.

The law required the opposite. When a witness was found false, the matter was not dropped quietly for the sake of peace: it was dealt with openly, precisely so that others would hear and fear. God's concern was not merely that the accused should escape punishment, but that the truth should be publicly established.

And moving to a new accusation because the first one failed is itself an admission. An honest person who discovers he was wrong about a man does not go looking for a different charge. He revises his opinion of the man.

10. What God says about the end of it

Scripture does not leave the false witness with the impression that he has succeeded.

"Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off." (Psalm 101:5)

Note the word privily — secretly, where it cannot be answered. That is the form God singles out.

"But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." (Matthew 12:36-37)

Every word spoken about another person is on a record that will be read back. Not the ones you would defend: the idle ones, the ones you have forgotten, the ones said in a car or a kitchen and never thought of again.

"All liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." (Revelation 21:8)

That is a solemn verse, and it is not aimed only at spectacular deceivers. It is a category, and a great many respectable people belong to it.

"A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape." (Proverbs 19:5)

The same sentence occurs again four verses later, with the ending changed, and the change is worse:

"A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish." (Proverbs 19:9)

"A false witness shall perish: but the man that heareth speaketh constantly." (Proverbs 21:28)

And the account will be complete, whether or not it was ever settled here:

"But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matthew 12:36)

Every idle word. Not merely the deliberate slanders: the careless remark, the passed-on rumour, the thing said to fill a silence.

"A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape." (Proverbs 19:5)

Note the two halves, because they anticipate the obvious objection. What if he is never found out? What if the false witness dies respected, and the man he ruined dies under the cloud? Scripture answers: he shall not escape. Not that he will always be exposed in this life — often he is not, but that there is no escape, which is a longer statement than it first appears.

The same book names the false witness in its short list of things God hates, and places beside him, in the emphatic final position, the man who sows discord among brethren. And when the New Testament describes those who are shut out at the end, it does not confine itself to the violent:

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8)

And all liars. Placed in that company, without apology, at the end of the list where the weight falls. Whatever else this verse teaches, it forbids us to treat lying as a minor and rather human failing.

Scripture also speaks of a great house containing vessels of gold and silver, and also of wood and earth — some to honour and some to dishonour, and says that if a man purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and fit for the Master's use. The point is not decorative. What a man does with his tongue helps determine which kind of vessel he becomes, and a vessel of dishonour is still in the house. It is simply not used for anything the Master values.

11. Turn the light around

Here this article must do what the previous one did, or it becomes a weapon instead of a mirror. An article about false witness, read in order to think about somebody else, has been read badly.

It is easy to read a page like this thinking of someone who did it to you. Turn the light the other way for a moment.

When did you last repeat something about a person that you had not verified? When did you last tell a version of events that made you look better than you were? When did you last stay silent while somebody was misrepresented in front of you, because correcting it would have been awkward?

And here is the question that finds most of us: is there anyone who thinks worse of a third person because of something you said?

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23-24)

That is the right prayer here, and note who is asked to do the searching. Not you, examining yourself and grading generously. Search me, O God.

So let each of us examine himself, and the questions are uncomfortable by design.

When did I last pass on something about a person that I had not verified? When I describe a disagreement, do I include the parts that weaken my side? Have I ever supplied a motive I could not possibly know? Have I asked a leading question in order to plant an impression I did not have the courage to state? Is there anyone about whom I have said something I would not repeat with them in the room?

And the hardest: is there someone alive today who is thought of less well because of a thing I said?

The writer of this article stands under those questions with every reader. No one who has ever spoken about another person is comfortably clear of this commandment.

12. What to do if you have borne false witness

This is the practical part, and it matters more than the analysis.

Suppose you know you have done it. What now? Three things, in order, and none of them is comfortable.

Confess it to God as what it is. Not as an indiscretion or a slip of the tongue. Name it.

"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." (Proverbs 28:13)

Go to the person you spoke to, and withdraw it. This is the part everyone wants to skip, and it is the only part that limits the damage. The words went somewhere; they must be followed.

And where you can, go to the one you spoke against. It will cost you something. It is meant to.

"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." (Matthew 5:23-24)

Read the order the Lord Jesus Christ gives. Worship stops. The gift is set down. The matter with the brother is settled first, and then worship resumes.

If this page has named something you have done, here is what to do, and none of it is comfortable.

Confess it to God as what it is. Not gossip, not indiscretion. False witness.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

Then go to the person you damaged. This is the hard part, and it is not optional. The Lord Jesus Christ put reconciliation ahead of worship:

"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." (Matthew 5:23-24)

And then go to those who heard you. A lie does not stop travelling because you have stopped telling it. Whoever received it from you must be told, by name, that it was not true.

That is humiliating, and it is the only honest repair. Anything less leaves the damage running while your conscience rests.

Then stop, and do not rehearse it for the rest of your life. What God has forgiven, He has forgiven.

First, confess it to God plainly, without softening the word. Not I may have contributed to a misunderstanding. Say what it was.

Second, go to the person you spoke against. This is the part everyone wishes were optional, and it is not. Tell him what you said, and to whom, and that it was untrue.

Third, correct it with the same reach it had. A report spread to twenty people is not repaired by an apology to one. The lie travelled; the truth must travel the same road.

Fourth, accept the cost. You may lose standing. People may think less of you. That is the price of the thing you did, and paying it is the beginning of being an honest man.

This is hard, and most people who read it will not do it. But there is no other route back, and the person who takes it will find the load lighter than the one he has been carrying.

13. Mercy for the false witness

And now the thing that must not be left out, because without it this article would drive a guilty person to despair rather than to God.

And now the word this page has been travelling toward, because a page that only condemns would leave you where it found you.

The men who condemned the Lord Jesus Christ used false witnesses. Scripture records it without softening:

"Now the chief priests, and elders, and all the council, sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none." (Matthew 26:59-60)

He was killed on the testimony of liars. And on the cross He prayed for the men who arranged it.

"Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

If there is forgiveness available for men who bore false witness against the Son of God, there is forgiveness for what you said about your neighbour.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

The tongue that has done the damage is also the one that can confess it. Use it.

"O LORD, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise." (Psalm 51:15)

And now the word this page has been moving toward.

The men who bore false witness against the Lord Jesus Christ were not beyond mercy. Some of the very men in that council were among the crowd at Pentecost, and the apostle Peter said to them plainly what they had done, and then told them what to do about it.

"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." (Acts 3:19)

And the greatest of the persecutors, who had held the coats of the men stoning Stephen on false testimony, obtained mercy:

"Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." (1 Timothy 1:13)

If mercy reached the men who did it to Him, and reached the man who stood by while it was done to Stephen, there is no reader of this page beyond its range.

"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Isaiah 1:18)

There is forgiveness for this sin. Full forgiveness.

Consider that the man who wrote much of the New Testament had stood consenting to the death of Stephen: the very execution procured by suborned witnesses. He held the coats. And he became the apostle Paul, and God used him more than almost any other man who has lived.

Consider that the leading apostle denied his Lord three times with oaths and curses, on the same night that false witnesses were testifying against Him, and was restored by name, and fed the sheep.

If God can forgive that, He can forgive what you have said.

"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)

And there is a further comfort, for the other side of this. If you are the one who has been falsely accused, and there is no court that will hear you and no way to clear your name — remember who else stood in that position. He was silent before His accusers, and He committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. Nothing is lost. God has the whole record, and He does not lose evidence.

Speak the truth, and let it cost you

God's people are to be recognisable by this: that what they say can be relied upon, about friends and about opponents alike, when it helps them and when it does not.

"He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit." (Proverbs 12:17)

It costs something. It will cost you the satisfying version of a story, and sometimes the approval of a room that wants to hear something else. But God has set truthful speech among the things He delights in, and the man who deals truly with his neighbour is doing something God notices and loves.

A sentence can ruin a man. It can also defend one. Both are within your power today.

Let us Pray:

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.

We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who, when He was reviled, reviled not again. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "Lie not one to another" (Colossians 3:9), and which cannot be broken.

We confess before You of every word we have repeated without knowing whether it was true. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.

Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to make every reader a person whose word can be trusted, for Your glory and not for ours.

We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The Most Important Prayer You Will Ever Pray

Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?

You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin, but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.

If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words, but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:

After You Have Prayed

1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).

2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).

3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.

4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved: you already are, but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.

5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).