Ephesians 4:29

⁶Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

¹¹Therefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as you also do.

¹²The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious; but a fool is swallowed by his own lips.

⁷The lips of the wise spread knowledge; not so with the heart of fools.

⁸but now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth. ⁹Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings,

³⁴You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. ³⁵The good man out of his good treasure^[+] brings out good things, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings out evil things. ³⁶I tell you that every idle word that men speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. ³⁷For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

³⁰The mouth of the righteous talks of wisdom. His tongue speaks justice. ³¹The law of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide.

¹¹A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. ¹²As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover to an obedient ear.

²For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect person, able to bridle the whole body also. ³Indeed, we put bits into the horses’ mouths so that they may obey us, and we guide their whole body. ⁴Behold,^[+] the ships also, though they are so big and are driven by fierce winds, are yet guided by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires. ⁵So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest! ⁶And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna.^7[+] For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and sea creature is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind; ⁸but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

²The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools gush out folly. ³The LORD’s eyes are everywhere, keeping watch on the evil and the good. ⁴A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but deceit in it crushes the spirit.