843 verses about Honesty

When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow.

It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.

Don’t allow your mouth to lead you into sin. Don’t protest before the messenger that this was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice, and destroy the work of your hands?

The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written blamelessly, words of truth.

Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.

Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards. They don’t judge the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!

The elder and the honorable man is the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail.

who cause a person to be indicted by a word, and lay a snare for the arbiter in the gate, and who deprive the innocent of justice with false testimony.

who tell the seers, “Don’t see!” and to the prophets, “Don’t prophesy to us right things. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy deceits.

The fool will no longer be called noble, nor the scoundrel be highly respected.

He who walks righteously, and speaks blamelessly; He who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing to take a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of blood, and shuts his eyes from looking at evil—

I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness. I didn’t say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, Yahweh, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right.

“Hear this, house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel, and have come out of the waters of Judah. You swear by Yahweh’s name, and make mention of the God of Israel, but not in truth, nor in righteousness

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness.

No one sues in righteousness, and no one pleads in truth. They trust in vanity, and speak lies. They conceive mischief, and give birth to iniquity.

“For I, Yahweh, love justice. I hate robbery and iniquity. I will give them their reward in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

“Yet you said, ‘I am innocent. Surely his anger has turned away from me.’ “Behold, I will judge you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’

and you will swear, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness. The nations will bless themselves in him, and they will glory in him.”

Though they say, ‘As Yahweh lives,’ surely they swear falsely.”

“‘How do you say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us?” But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely.

“They bend their tongue, as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don’t know me,” says Yahweh.

Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart, he waits to ambush him.

As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will leave him. At his end, he will be a fool.

As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you. I haven’t desired the woeful day. You know. That which came out of my lips was before your face.

“I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’

The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; and he who has my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the straw to the wheat?” says Yahweh.

“Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,” says Yahweh, “who each steal my words from his neighbor.

because they have done foolish things in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I didn’t command them. I am he who knows, and am witness,” says Yahweh.

I signed the deed, sealed it, called witnesses, and weighed the money in the balances to him.

So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which was open;

and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle’s son, and in the presence of the witnesses who subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard.

Then Baruch answered them, “He dictated all these words to me with his mouth, and I wrote them with ink in the book.”

When he was in Benjamin’s gate, a captain of the guard was there, whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he seized Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are defecting to the Chaldeans!”

Moreover Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison?

Ebedmelech went out of the king’s house, and spoke to the king, saying,

Then Zedekiah the king sent and took Jeremiah the prophet to himself into the third entry that is in Yahweh’s house. Then the king said to Jeremiah, “I will ask you something. Hide nothing from me.”

Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I declare it to you, will you not surely put me to death? If I give you counsel, you will not listen to me.”

Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no man know of these words, and you won’t die.

But if the princes hear that I have talked with you, and they come to you, and tell you, ‘Declare to us now what you have said to the king; don’t hide it from us, and we will not put you to death; also tell us what the king said to you;’

then you shall tell them, ‘I presented my supplication before the king, that he would not cause me to return to Jonathan’s house, to die there.’”

Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, “Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man will know it. Why should he take your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?”

But ten men were found among those who said to Ishmael, “Don’t kill us; for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey.” So he stopped, and didn’t kill them among their brothers.

Then they said to Jeremiah, “May Yahweh be a true and faithful witness among us, if we don’t do according to all the word with which Yahweh your God sends you to tell us.

Haven’t you seen a false vision, and haven’t you spoken a lying divination, in that you say, ‘Yahweh says;’ but I have not spoken?”

“‘Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Because you have spoken falsehood and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you,” says the Lord Yahweh.

“But if a man is just, and does that which is lawful and right,

Her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh,’ when Yahweh has not spoken.

“You shall have just balances, a just ephah, and a just bath.

But if you show the dream and its interpretation, you will receive of me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore show me the dream and its interpretation.”

They answered the second time and said, “Let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show the interpretation.”

The king answered, “I know of a certainty that you are trying to gain time, because you see the thing has gone from me.

and over them three presidents, of whom Daniel was one; that these satraps might give account to them, and that the king should suffer no loss.

Then the presidents and the satraps sought to find occasion against Daniel as touching the kingdom; but they could find no occasion or fault, because he was faithful. There wasn’t any error or fault found in him.

They make promises, swearing falsely in making covenants. Therefore judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood, and the house of Israel with deceit. Judah still strays from God, and is unfaithful to the Holy One.

A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud.

They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly.

Saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.”

Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a short ephah that is accursed?

Shall I be pure with dishonest scales, and with a bag of deceitful weights?

Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.

Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart.

The remnant of Israel will not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they will feed and lie down, and no one will make them afraid.”

Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land; for everyone who steals shall be cut off according to it on the one side; and everyone who swears falsely shall be cut off according to it on the other side.

I will cause it to go out,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and it will enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him who swears falsely by my name; and it will remain in the middle of his house, and will destroy it with its timber and its stones.”

These are the things that you shall do: speak every man the truth with his neighbor. Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates,

and let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbor, and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate,” says Yahweh.

It will happen in that day, that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision, when he prophesies; neither will they wear a hairy mantle to deceive:

but he will say, ‘I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground; for I have been made a bondservant from my youth.’

But when it came to my house, it began to cry, and I said to her, Where did this kid come from? Is it stolen? Give it back to the owners; for it is not lawful to eat anything that is stolen.

But she said, “It has been given to me for a gift more than the wages.” I didn’t believe her, and I asked her to return it to the owners; and I was ashamed of her. But she answered and said to me, “Where are your alms and your righteous deeds? Behold, you and all your works are known.”

You know, Lord, that I am pure from all sin with man,

For if you do what is true, your deeds will prosperously succeed for you, and for all those who do righteousness.

Don’t let the wages of any man who works for you wait with you, but give it to him out of hand. If you serve God, you will be rewarded. Take heed to yourself, my child, in all your works, and be discreet in all your behavior.

And now I explain to you about the ten talents of silver, which I left in trust with Gabael the son of Gabrias at Rages of Media.

But how could I receive the money, since I don’t know him?”

He gave him the handwriting, and said to him, “Seek a man who will go with you, and I will give him wages, whiles I yet live; and go and receive the money.”

The angel said to him, “I will go with you. I know the way well. I have lodged with our brother Gabael.”

He said to him, “Go, and don’t wait. And he went in and said to his father, “Behold, I have found someone who will go with me.” But he said, “Call him to me, that I may know of what tribe he is, and whether he be a trustworthy man to go with you.”

And Tobit said to him, “Brother, of what tribe and of what family are you? Tell me.”

He said to him, “Do you seek a tribe and a family, or a hired man which will go with your son?” And Tobit said to him, “I want to know, brother, your kindred and your name.”

And he said, “I am Azarias, the son of Ananias the great, of your kindred.”

And he said to him, “Welcome, brother. Don’t be angry with me, because I sought to know your tribe and family. You are my brother, of an honest and good lineage; for I knew Ananias and Jathan, the sons of Shemaiah the great, when we went together to Jerusalem to worship, and offered the firstborn, and the tenths of our increase; and they didn’t go went astray in the error of our kindred. My brother, you are of a great stock.

And moreover, if you both return safe and sound, I will add something to your wages.”

blessed him, and said to him, “You are the son of an honest and good man.” When he had heard that Tobit had lost his sight, he was grieved, and wept;

for it belongs to you to take my child. However I will tell you the truth.

He called Edna his wife, then took a book, wrote a contract, and sealed it.

So Raphael went on his way, and lodged with Gabael, and gave him the handwriting; so he brought forth the bags with their seals, and gave them to him.

And Tobit called his son Tobias, and said to him, “See, my child, that the man which went with you have his wages, and you must give him more.”

Surely I will keep nothing closed from you. I have said, ‘It is good to keep close the secret of a king, but to reveal gloriously the works of God.’

Then Achior, the leader of all the children of Ammon, said to him, “Let my lord now hear a word from the mouth of your servant, and I will tell you the truth concerning these people who dwell in this hill country, near to the place where you dwell. No lie will come out of the mouth of your servant.

And Ozias said to her, “All that you have spoken, you have spoken with a good heart. There is no one who will deny your words.

I am coming into the presence of Holofernes the chief captain of your army, to declare words of truth. I will show him a way that he can go and win all the hill country, and there will not be lacking of his men one person, nor one life.”

But when you stand before him, don’t be afraid in your heart, but declare to him according to your words; and he will treat you well.”

And Judith said to him, “Receive the words of your servant, and let your handmaid speak in your presence, and I will declare no lie to my lord this night.

And now as concerning the matter which Achior spoke in your council, we have heard his words; for the men of Bethulia saved him, and he declared to them all that he had spoken before you.

Now tell me all the things that you have done in these days.” And Judith declared to him in the midst of the people all the things that she had done, from the day that she went out until the time that she spoke to them.

And the matter was discovered by Mordecai, and he made it known to Esther, and she declared to the king the matter of the conspiracy.