Ephesians 4:29

Speech should never be corrupting but should build others up and give grace to hearers. Christians are to use words to benefit, not harm.

Cross-references · 38

• Col 4:6Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
• 1 Th 5:11Therefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as you also do.
• Eccl 10:12The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious; but a fool is swallowed by his own lips.
• Prov 15:7The lips of the wise spread knowledge; not so with the heart of fools.
• Col 3:8–9but now you also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.
• Matt 12:34–37You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
• Prov 25:11–12A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.
• Ps 37:30–31The mouth of the righteous talks of wisdom. His tongue speaks justice.
• Jas 3:2–8For in many things we all stumble. If anyone doesn’t stumble in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.
• Prov 15:2–4The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouth of fools gush out folly.
• Col 3:16–17Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
• Eph 5:3–4But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints;
• Matt 5:16Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
• Prov 12:13An evil man is trapped by sinfulness of lips, but the righteous shall come out of trouble.
• Isa 50:4The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him who is weary. He wakens morning by morning, he wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
• Prov 16:21The wise in heart shall be called prudent. Pleasantness of the lips promotes instruction.
• Prov 10:31–32The mouth of the righteous produces wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.
• Luke 4:22All testified about him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
• 1 Pet 2:12having good behavior among the nations, so in that of which they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they see, glorify God in the day of visitation.
• Prov 15:23Joy comes to a man with the reply of his mouth. How good is a word at the right time!
• Ps 52:2Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.
• Deut 6:6–9These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart;
• Ps 5:9For there is no faithfulness in their mouth. Their heart is destruction. Their throat is an open tomb. They flatter with their tongue.
• Rom 3:13–14“Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have used deceit.” “The poison of vipers is under their lips”;
• 1 Pet 3:1In the same way, wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; so that, even if any don’t obey the Word, they may be won by the behavior of their wives without a word;
• 1 Cor 15:32–33If I fought with animals at Ephesus for human purposes, what does it profit me? If the dead are not raised, then “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
• Ps 71:17–18God, you have taught me from my youth. Until now, I have declared your wondrous works.
• Eph 4:12for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ;
• Mal 3:16–18Then those who feared Yahweh spoke one with another; and Yahweh listened, and heard, and a book of memory was written before him, for those who feared Yahweh, and who honored his name.
• Eph 4:16from whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each individual part, makes the body increase to the building up of itself in love.
• Ps 73:7–9Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit.
• Jude 1:13–16wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.
• Ps 71:24My tongue will also talk about your righteousness all day long, for they are disappointed, and they are confounded, who want to harm me.
• Ps 45:2You are the most excellent of the sons of men. Grace has anointed your lips, therefore God has blessed you forever.
• Rev 13:5–6A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy was given to him. Authority to make war for forty-two months was given to him.
• 1 Cor 14:19However in the assembly I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in another language.
• Ps 78:4–5We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and his wondrous deeds that he has done.
• 2 Pet 2:18For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error;

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