These Bible verses for lying are for anyone who wants to break a habit of dishonesty or who has been hurt by someone else’s lies. The Psalms give honest prayers for a clean heart and truthful lips, and Proverbs shows the lasting strength of truthful speech. Read them slowly, pray them back to God, and let them encourage you that change is possible with His help.
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Psalms 51:6 (KJV)
David recognises that God desires truth in the inward parts, a prayerful starting point for anyone wanting to stop lying.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalms 51:10 (KJV)
Asking God to create a clean heart and renew a right spirit addresses the root of dishonest habits.
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
Proverbs 28:13 (KJV)
Hiding sin keeps a person stuck, but confessing and forsaking it opens the door to mercy.
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.
Psalms 32:5 (KJV)
When David stopped hiding his sin and acknowledged it to God, he found forgiveness.
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalms 139:23-24 (KJV)
Inviting God to search your heart can bring hidden patterns of deception into the light.
Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously. I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid before me.
Psalms 119:29-30 (KJV)
The psalmist asks God to remove the way of lying and chooses the way of truth instead.
Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me:
Proverbs 30:8 (KJV)
Agur’s simple prayer begins, remove far from me vanity and lies, a request anyone can echo.
Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue.
Psalms 120:2 (KJV)
A cry for deliverance from lying lips, useful both for those who lie and those hurt by lies.
Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
Psalms 15:1-2 (KJV)
God welcomes the person who walks uprightly and speaks the truth in his heart.
What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Psalms 34:12-13 (KJV)
Loving life and seeing good days is tied to keeping the lips from speaking guile.
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:31-32 (KJV)
Jesus promises that continuing in His word leads to knowing the truth, and the truth sets people free.
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Ephesians 4:15 (KJV)
Speaking the truth in love is the goal, honesty that is also kind and helps others grow.
But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
James 5:12 (KJV)
A plain yes or no, kept faithfully, removes the need for exaggeration or oath-making.
The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment.
Proverbs 12:19 (KJV)
Truthful lips last for ever, while a lying tongue is but for a moment.
He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.
Proverbs 10:9 (KJV)
Walking with integrity brings security, while crooked ways are eventually found out.
Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.
Psalms 25:4-5 (KJV)
David asks God to lead him in truth and teach him, a gentle daily prayer for an honest life.
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
3 John 1:4 (KJV)
John had no greater joy than hearing that his children walked in truth, an encouragement for honest living.
Lying often becomes a habit before we notice it: small exaggerations, quick excuses or cover stories that feel easier than the truth. A good first step is to be honest with God. Psalms 51:6 and Psalms 139:23-24 invite Him to look at the heart, and Proverbs 28:13 promises mercy to those who confess and forsake their sin. Try praying one of these verses each morning and asking God to show you where you are tempted to bend the truth.
Next, make practical changes. When you realise you have lied, correct it quickly, even if it is awkward. James 5:12 encourages a plain yes or no, which means making fewer promises you cannot keep. Ephesians 4:15 reminds you that honesty should be gentle, so truth and kindness can go together. Sharing your goal with a trusted friend or mentor can also help you stay accountable.
If you have been lied to, these verses still apply. Psalms 120:2 lets you bring the hurt to God, and John 8:31-32 points to the freedom found in His truth. Take time to heal, set sensible boundaries where trust has been broken, and remember that God is always faithful even when people are not.
Bible Verses For Lying are ultimately about the move from hiding to honesty, and Scripture shows that move happening in several different lives. The six stories below range from a king who finally admitted his guilt to a woman at a well who stopped giving evasive answers.
2 Samuel 12:1-13 describes the prophet Nathan confronting David with a story that exposed his affair with Bathsheba and the death he had arranged to cover it, after months of David hiding what he had done. The moment David said simply, I have sinned against the Lord, without excuse or deflection, is the same honesty Psalm 51 was written out of.
Joshua 7:19-21 describes Achan finally admitting, after being confronted directly, that he had taken forbidden items from Jericho and buried them inside his tent. Achan had lied by silence for as long as he could, and his eventual honesty came only once hiding was no longer possible, a reminder that confession delayed is still better than no confession at all, even though it did not undo the consequences.
Acts 5:1-10 describes Ananias and his wife Sapphira selling property and claiming to give the full amount to the church while secretly keeping part of it back, a lie they agreed on together rather than simply telling the truth about what they wanted to give. Peter made clear their sin was not keeping some money but pretending they had not, lying to the Holy Spirit rather than simply being honest about their actual gift.
Luke 15:17-21 describes the prodigal son rehearsing an honest confession on his way home, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, rather than crafting an excuse or a story that would make him look better. He had every opportunity to dress up what happened, and instead chose plain honesty with his father, which is exactly what made the reunion possible.
Luke 19:8 describes Zacchaeus telling Jesus he would give half his goods to the poor and repay fourfold anyone he had wrongly overcharged as a tax collector, an honest reckoning with a dishonest career rather than a vague promise to do better. His decision turned years of financial deception into specific, costly correction.
John 4:16-19 describes a Samaritan woman giving Jesus a technically true but incomplete answer about her husband, until He revealed He already knew the fuller truth of her life, at which point she stopped deflecting and openly admitted what He had said was accurate. Her honesty afterward led her to run and tell her whole town about Him instead of continuing to hide.
David’s confession, Achan’s delayed honesty, Ananias and Sapphira’s shared lie, the prodigal son’s plain admission, Zacchaeus’s costly correction, and the woman at the well’s openness all show the same basic movement, from hiding toward truth. Bible Verses For Lying exist for exactly this movement, because every one of these six found that honesty, however late or costly, was still better than the lie.
Lord, like David before Nathan, give me the courage to say I have sinned without excuse when I am confronted with the truth. Like Achan, do not let me wait until hiding is impossible before I come clean. Keep me from Ananias and Sapphira’s pattern of agreeing with someone else to maintain a shared lie. Like the prodigal son, let me rehearse honesty instead of excuses on my way back to You. Like Zacchaeus, make my repentance specific and costly rather than vague. And like the woman at the well, let me stop deflecting the moment You show me what You already know. Amen.
These Bible Verses For Lying are meant to be practiced, not just read. Like David, practice naming a sin plainly instead of softening it when you finally talk about it. Like Achan, do not wait for discovery; bring hidden things into the light sooner rather than later. Watch, as Ananias and Sapphira did not, for the moment a shared story with someone else becomes a shared lie. Like the prodigal son, prepare honest words ahead of a hard conversation instead of an excuse. Like Zacchaeus, make any needed correction specific rather than a vague promise to improve.
Sit with these Bible Verses For Lying and ask yourself two honest questions. Achan hid what he had taken until there was no other option but honesty. Is there something you are waiting to be caught in rather than confessing now? The woman at the well stopped deflecting once Jesus showed He already knew the truth. What question are you currently answering evasively instead of honestly?
Exodus 20:16 reads, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” Picture where those words first landed. Israel had no police force, no cameras, no lab to test a stain on a robe. A village elder sat at the town gate, heard two or three witnesses, and decided who kept a field or lost a life. If one witness lied, a family could be ruined before supper. So the commandment is blunt about something we tend to treat lightly: a false statement can do real damage to a real person.
Deuteronomy 19:15-19 goes on to require more than one witness, and it says that a person proven to have lied on purpose should receive what he had planned for his neighbour. Most of our untruths never reach a courtroom. Still, the same logic applies at a workplace meeting or a family dinner, where a bent story quietly testifies about someone else, and the listeners act on it. When you read the Bible verses for lying on this page with that in mind, even a small exaggeration about a coworker starts to look like testimony you are giving, whether you meant to or not. God treats our words as something we answer for.
Look closely at Genesis 3:1. The serpent does not open with a flat denial. He asks, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” The question stretches what God had actually said, makes the command sound stingy, and plants a doubt. Only after the woman answers does he commit to an outright falsehood in verse 4: “Ye shall not surely die.” Most lies I have watched grow in real lives follow the same order. First a little twisting of what was said. Then a bigger claim that nobody checks, because the ground was already softened.
Jesus traced that pattern to its source in John 8:44, where He says the devil “is a liar, and the father of it.” That is a sobering line for anyone who treats lying as harmless social oil. It does not mean every person who lies is beyond help; among the Bible verses for lying here, Psalms 51:6 says God desires “truth in the inward parts,” and the whole direction of the page is toward confession and mercy. It does mean the habit has a parent, and the habit tends to resemble it. When you catch yourself reshaping a conversation so that you come out looking better, ask whether you are repeating a question God never asked.
Genesis 27 is a long, uncomfortable scene. Isaac is old and nearly blind. Rebekah dresses her younger son in his brother’s clothes, wraps his arms in goatskin, and sends him in with a plate of meat. Jacob says, “I am Esau thy firstborn.” Every part of that moment is staged: the smell, the hair, the voice pitched a little differently. The blessing is given, and Esau comes back to find it gone. Genesis 27:35 records Isaac’s own verdict, “Thy brother came with subtilty, and hath taken away thy blessing.”
What follows is the part people skip. Jacob runs for his life, and as far as the text tells us he never sees his mother again. He spends twenty years working for Laban, a man far better at deception than he is. When Laban swaps Leah for Rachel on the wedding night, Jacob cries out in Genesis 29:25, “wherefore then hast thou beguiled me?” The question lands with some irony. Scripture does not hide the family failures of its heroes, and it does not let the lie go free. The Bible verses for lying rarely stand alone; Genesis 27 shows the whole story behind them. A deception that wins something today often sends the bill later, and the bill arrives with interest.
Not every lie sounds like a lie. In Genesis 12:11-13, Abraham is nervous about entering Egypt because Sarah is beautiful and he assumes someone will kill him to take her. His plan: “Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake.” Genesis 20:12 later explains that Sarah really was his half-sister, so the sentence was technically defensible. Yet Pharaoh took her into his household on the strength of it, and trouble followed. Abraham used true words to build a false picture.
That is the half-truth, and many of us live in it. We answer the question that was asked and skip the fact that was needed. A job candidate lists a project and leaves out that he was only the intern. A husband says he was at the office and omits the stop afterward. Abraham tries the same move again in Genesis 20 with King Abimelech, and Isaac repeats it in Genesis 26, which shows how a family habit can pass down. If the Bible verses for lying seem to cover only flat falsehoods, you are reading them too narrowly. The goal is a clear picture in the other person’s mind, not merely a sentence you could defend.
People often ask about situations where telling everything seems dangerous. Exodus 1:15-21 gives one of the best-known. Pharaoh orders two Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, to kill newborn boys. They refuse, and when Pharaoh demands an explanation, they say that Hebrew women deliver before a midwife can arrive. Verse 20 says, “Therefore God dealt well with the midwives.” Rahab in Joshua 2 hid two spies and sent soldiers off in the wrong direction, and James 2:25 praises her for receiving the messengers and sending them out another way.
Care is needed here. The text commends the midwives for fearing God and protecting life; it does not hold up their explanation as a model for ordinary speech. Nowhere does Scripture hand us a rule that lying is fine whenever we feel it would help. Honest teachers disagree about how to read these stories, and I would rather admit that than pretend the question is tidy. What is clear is that these were people under threat of death, defending the innocent from violent power. That is a long way from lying to avoid an awkward conversation or a late fee. If you are in a truly dangerous situation, such as hiding from someone who hurts you, please also reach out to a trusted pastor, a shelter, or the authorities.
Ephesians 4:25 begins, “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” The reason Paul gives is not a rule but a relationship. A body works because the hand tells the brain the truth about heat. If your finger reported a cool stove while it was burning, the whole person would pay. Churches, families and teams are the same. Colossians 3:9 adds, “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds,” which treats honesty as part of a new set of clothes rather than a performance.
Sometimes this costs something. Telling the boss that the report is late, admitting to your spouse that the money is gone, telling a friend you cannot keep the secret she asked for. The cost is real, and these Bible verses for lying do not pretend otherwise. But notice the promise in John 8:32, “the truth shall make you free.” It comes with the condition in verse 31 about continuing in His word, so freedom is tied to staying with Him over time, not to a single brave confession. Start with the next honest sentence, not with an entire reinvented life.
Most of us would never lie under oath, yet we say, “I’m five minutes away” from the driveway, or “we should get lunch soon” with no plan to call. Matthew 5:37 is Jesus speaking to a culture of elaborate oaths: “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” His point is that a person whose word is reliable does not need extra decoration. Proverbs 12:22 puts it from the other side: “Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.”
I would not call every polite phrase a sin. Saying “fine, thanks” to a cashier is not testimony. But when you notice a habit of small untruths, treat it as a training ground. People who fudge about traffic usually fudge about bigger things when pressure rises. Psalms 15:1-2 describes the one who “speaketh the truth in his heart,” which suggests honesty runs deeper than the lips. Try a week of saying only what is accurate, even if the sentences get shorter, and count how many reflex untruths you catch. That count is usually humbling and also a good place to begin.
Confessing is one step. Being believed again is another, and it moves slowly. Proverbs 26:28 says, “A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it,” a line that reminds us other people carry the cost of our falsehoods. Jesus gives a practical order in Matthew 5:23-24: if you are at the altar and remember your brother has something against you, leave the gift, go first and be reconciled. Worship waits while you make the phone call or write the letter.
When you do approach the person, say plainly what you did, without a speech about your own feelings. Skip the “if I hurt you” phrasing and the explanation of why anyone would have done the same. Offer to answer questions honestly, even the ones that sting. Then let time do its work. Zacchaeus did not demand instant trust in Luke 19:8; he promised to restore fourfold and let his neighbours watch. Keep the Bible verses for lying in front of you as a daily practice rather than a one-time fix. If the habit is tied to something heavier, like addiction, old shame or anxiety, a counselor or trusted pastor can help you work on the root.
Nearby topics worth a look: Bible Verses About New Beginnings, Bible Verses For Humility, Bible Verses For Wealth, Bible Verses For Depression, Bible Verses For Forgiveness, Bible Verses For Stress, Bible Verses For Forgiveness and Healing, Bible Verses About Spiritual Growth, Bible Verses For Work, Bible Verses About Gratitude and Bible Verses About Peace of Mind.
To study these verses in more depth, try Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway, Bible Hub and Bible Study Tools.
Lying often becomes a habit before we notice it: small exaggerations, quick excuses or cover stories that feel easier than the truth.
This page brings together 7 King James Version references about lying, drawn from 5 different books of the Bible.
Yes. The verses about lying gathered here include passages from both the Old Testament and the New Testament, such as Psalms 51:6 and James 5:12.
Psalms 51:6 is one of the verses about lying referenced in this collection, alongside Psalms 139:23.
Yes, the verses referenced on this page, including Psalms 51:6, are quoted according to the King James Version (KJV), and are suitable for daily reading, memorization, or devotional use.
