Psalms 12:3 · World English Bible
Psalms 12:3 Meaning May Yahweh Cut Off All Flattering Lips
May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that boasts,
What does Psalms 12:3 mean?
Flattery and boasting look like opposites, but they spring from the same root, which is the manipulation of others through speech. The flatterer bends a person with sweetness.
From the Clinical Psychology reading below.
Psalms 12:3 through 2 lenses
The same verse, read by 2 traditions.
Clinical Psychology
Sufism
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Clinical Psychology
Flattery and boasting look like opposites, but they spring from the same root, which is the manipulation of others through speech. The flatterer bends a person with sweetness. The proud man overwhelms with his own importance. Both replace what is with what serves them.
A reckoning is promised here, and it is worth taking seriously. Words that distort the world for advantage do damage that accumulates, and eventually the structure built on them fails. A person who lives by charming falsehood is building on sand. Speak so that your words correspond to the truth, because the alternative collapses, and it takes the speaker down with it.
Clinical Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
SUFISM
Sufism
Flattery and boasting are two coats of the same rust, born of wanting to be seen. The flatterer trades honesty for approval; the boaster inflates a self that God alone holds up. Read inward, this prayer asks for one's own tongue to be cleaned before it wounds.
The cure is plain and hard: truthfulness in secret, saying the honest thing whether or not it earns applause, and letting praise pass through to its owner. Every gift the boaster claims is borrowed light, shining while he forgets to point at himself.
Sufism lensGo deeper in the app
Clinical Psychology lens
Live Psalms 12:3 today
- Delete the sentence in your draft email that is there only to make you look good. Send the plainer version.
- When you want to compliment someone, say the specific true thing instead of the flattering general thing.
- In the meeting where exaggerating your part would be easy and uncheckable, give the real numbers instead.
Where am I using charm to get something I could not get honestly?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching 81
True words are not pretty and pretty words are not true. Charm and accuracy pull in different directions.
Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius
Say what you mean and mean what you say, plainly. A life built on performance costs more to maintain every year.
Analects
Clever talk and a studied expression rarely come with real character. Be suspicious of the words that are too smooth.
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