Old Testament
Proverbs 11:1-3
1 A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but accurate weights are his delight.
2 When pride comes, then comes shame, but with humility comes wisdom.
3 The integrity of the upright shall guide them, but the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them.
New Testament
Ephesians 4:25-27
25 Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak truth each one with his neighbour, for we are members of one another.
26 “Be angry, and don’t sin.” Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath,
27 and don’t give place to the devil.
Proverbs begins with something as ordinary as a set of scales. A false balance, it says, is an abomination to the Lord; honest weights delight him. God’s concern reaches into the marketplace, into the measurements by which people are treated fairly or quietly cheated.
Lord, make us people of alētheia (ἀλήθεια): truthful in heart and careful in speech. Teach us to tell the truth kindly, to hear it humbly, and to build public life that does not depend on deception to keep running.
Paul takes that same moral seriousness into the speech of the Church. “Put off falsehood,” he writes, and “speak truth” with your neighbour, because we belong to one another. Truth is not merely accuracy. It is neighbour-love in words. It is refusing to bend reality to protect our pride, our tribe, or our advantage.
In a digital age, our “weights” and “measures” can be numbers on a screen: metrics, reports, categories, headlines, timelines. Transparency is not the cult of self-exposure, nor the pretence that everything can be made simple. It is the steady choice not to hide harm behind jargon, not to bury responsibility in systems, not to let untruth do its slow work in the dark.