Proverbs 17:7 · World English Bible
Proverbs 17:7 Meaning Arrogant Speech Isn’t Fitting for a Fool
Arrogant speech isn’t fitting for a fool, much less do lying lips fit a prince.
What does Proverbs 17:7 mean?
The mind that still believes in separation cannot truly speak of love, for its fine words are hollow while its allegiance is to fear; the ego may borrow a gentle vocabulary, yet what it teaches underneath is always attack. And the mind that has come into its inheritance of peace betrays itself utterly when it stoops to falsehood, because its whole nature is truth, and a lie is simply the forgetting of what it already is.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 17:7 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
The mind that still believes in separation cannot truly speak of love, for its fine words are hollow while its allegiance is to fear; the ego may borrow a gentle vocabulary, yet what it teaches underneath is always attack. And the mind that has come into its inheritance of peace betrays itself utterly when it stoops to falsehood, because its whole nature is truth, and a lie is simply the forgetting of what it already is.
The correction is to let word and mind become one again, so that what is spoken flows from the teacher of love rather than dressing fear in borrowed grace.
Fool: the part of the mind that has chosen fear and calls it wisdom, whose fair speech cannot match the separation it still believes Prince: the mind established in its loving inheritance, whose true nature is honesty and for whom deception is only self-forgetting
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Live Proverbs 17:7 today
- Before you post or send something that sounds wise, check whether you actually believe it today. If not, delete it rather than performing it.
- When a friend asks how you are and the easy warm answer is not the honest one, give them one true sentence instead. Small, not dramatic.
- In a meeting where everyone is talking in generous language about a decision that is not generous, say the plain version of what is happening. Calmly, once, without a speech.
Where are my words running ahead of what I actually mean?
The same truth in other traditions
Confucius · Analects
He was wary of the person whose words ran far ahead of their conduct. Fine speech with nothing behind it is its own kind of lie.
Buddhism · Noble Eightfold Path
Right speech is not pretty speech. It is speech that matches what is actually true and actually kind.
Stoicism · Epictetus
Do not announce the principles you live by. Live them, and let anyone who is curious work it out from your behavior.
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