Exodus 20:16 · World English Bible
Exodus 20:16 Meaning You Shall Not Give False Testimony Against
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
What does Exodus 20:16 mean?
The neighbor is the one who stands nearest within, every other part of the self that shares the same house of the body, and the false witness is the inner testimony that misreports what is true about them. A mind that lies to itself about its own members, that accuses its own faculties falsely, poisons the harmony of the whole temple.
From the Esoteric reading below.
Exodus 20:16 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Esoteric
ESOTERIC
Esoteric
The neighbor is the one who stands nearest within, every other part of the self that shares the same house of the body, and the false witness is the inner testimony that misreports what is true about them. A mind that lies to itself about its own members, that accuses its own faculties falsely, poisons the harmony of the whole temple. This is spoken among the 10 sayings given on the mountain, the raised state of consciousness where the ordering laws of a whole person are received, and it governs the tongue of the inner court before it ever reaches an outward court. To bear witness is to give testimony from within; to bear it falsely is to let the divided mind slander the very energies it depends on.
The injury of the lie falls first on the one who tells it. False inner testimony corrupts the speaker's own perception, so that a person who habitually misreports the truth about others loses the power to see anything, including himself, as it actually is.
Neighbour: the part of the self that stands nearest within, sharing the same house of the body
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Live Exodus 20:16 today
- Before you decide what someone meant by that short message, try saying the kinder version out loud and see if it fits the facts just as well. Usually it does. You were making it up either way, so make up the true one.
- When the group chat turns on someone who is not in it, do not pile on. A single sentence, "to be fair, she had a reason," changes the whole temperature, and it costs you almost nothing.
- When you are frustrated with someone at work, keep your complaint to what actually happened. "They missed the deadline" is fair. "They never care about anything" is a story you will start believing, and it will color everything you see about them after that.
Who are you quietly telling yourself the worst version of?
The same truth in other traditions
Buddhism · right speech
Say what is true, and say it in a way that holds together. The habit of bending the truth bends the one speaking first.
Stoicism · Epictetus
We do not react to events, we react to the story we tell about them. Get the story wrong often enough and you lose the ability to see straight.
Judaism · lashon hara
Speech that harms is treated as its own grave wrong, even when every word of it is accurate. The tongue damages three people at once, including the one who used it.
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