Lying lips are detestable to the LORD, but those who deal faithfully are His delight.
Parallel translations
- WEB Lying lips are an abomination to Yahweh, but those who do the truth are his delight.
- KJV Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.
- NKJV Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, But those who deal truthfully are His delight.
- NASB Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, But those who deal faithfully are His delight.
- NLT The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Lying lips are detestable to God, but truthful people are His delight. The Lord loves truth and hates deceit.
Overview
This proverb declares God's strong moral response: He abhors lying lips and delights in those who deal truthfully. Honesty is not merely social etiquette but a reflection of God's own nature. The God who cannot lie calls His people to truthfulness as those remade in the image of Christ, who is full of grace and truth.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 5:6You destroy those who tell lies; the LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
- Rev 22:15But outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
- Prov 6:16–17There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him:
- Prov 11:20The perverse in heart are an abomination to the LORD, but the blameless in their walk are His delight.
- Jer 9:24But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, who exercises loving devotion, justice and righteousness on the earth—for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.
- Isa 9:15The head is the elder and honorable man, and the tail is the prophet who teaches lies.
- Prov 11:1Dishonest scales are an abomination to the LORD, but an accurate weight is His delight.
- Ezek 13:22Because you have disheartened the righteous with your lies, even though I have caused them no grief, and because you have encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways to save their lives,
- Prov 15:8The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.
- Ezek 13:19You have profaned Me among My people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. By lying to My people who would listen, you have killed those who should not have died and spared those who should not have lived.
- Rev 21:8But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 12:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.