Bible verses about slander show how seriously God takes words that damage another person’s name. From the ninth commandment to the letters of Paul, James and Peter, Scripture treats false or malicious talk as a real wrong against a neighbour, not a small slip. These passages explain what slander is, where it comes from, and why believers are called to speak about others with truth and care.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Exodus 20:16 (KJV)
The ninth commandment forbids bearing false witness against a neighbour, the root principle behind every biblical warning about slander.
Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbour: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:16 (KJV)
God’s law told Israel not to go up and down as a talebearer spreading harmful stories among the people.
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. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
Psalms 15:1-3 (KJV)
The person who may dwell with God is described as one who does not backbite or take up a reproach against a neighbour.
Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I cut off: him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer.
Psalms 101:5 (KJV)
David resolves that secret slander of a neighbour will have no place among those who serve with him.
He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool.
Proverbs 10:18 (KJV)
Here slander is paired with hidden hatred, and the one who spreads it is plainly called a fool.
These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
Proverbs 6:16-19 (KJV)
Among the things the Lord hates are a lying tongue, a false witness and anyone who sows discord among brethren.
Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.
Jeremiah 9:4 (KJV)
Jeremiah laments a society where neighbours cannot be trusted because everyone walks about with slanders.
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
Matthew 15:18-19 (KJV)
Jesus teaches that false witness and blasphemies come out of the heart, showing slander is a heart problem before a speech problem.
But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
Matthew 12:36-37 (KJV)
Every idle word will be accounted for on the day of judgment, so what we say about others truly matters.
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Romans 1:29-30 (KJV)
Paul lists whisperers and backbiters alongside other sins that mark a life turned away from God.
For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:
2 Corinthians 12:20 (KJV)
Paul feared finding backbitings and whisperings in the Corinthian church, showing how slander damages a congregation.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Ephesians 4:31 (KJV)
Evil speaking is named with bitterness and malice as something believers must put away entirely.
But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Colossians 3:8 (KJV)
Believers are told to put off malice, blasphemy and filthy communication as part of their new life in Christ.
Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.
Titus 3:1-2 (KJV)
Paul instructs Christians to speak evil of no man but to be gentle and show meekness to everyone.
Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
James 4:11 (KJV)
Speaking evil of a brother, James explains, sets us up as judges of the law rather than doers of it.
Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
1 Peter 2:1 (KJV)
Peter calls Christians to lay aside malice, guile and all evil speakings as they grow in faith.
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Psalms 34:13 (KJV)
A plain command to keep the tongue from evil and the lips from speaking deceit.
In Scripture, slander means speaking about someone in a way that harms their reputation, whether through outright lies, twisted half-truths or malicious whispering. Its foundation is the command in Exodus 20:16 not to bear false witness against a neighbour, and the law in Leviticus 19:16 applied it to everyday talk. The Psalms and Proverbs go further, describing the righteous person as one who does not backbite and calling the slanderer a fool.
Jesus locates the problem in the heart. In Matthew 15:18-19 He teaches that false witness flows out of what is already inside us, which means real change starts with a heart renewed by God. The apostles repeat this theme, listing evil speaking alongside bitterness and malice in Ephesians 4:31 and urging believers in Titus 3:2 to speak evil of no man.
The Bible also shows slander in action. Joseph was falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife and imprisoned for a wrong he refused to commit, and Jesus Himself faced false witnesses at His trial. These accounts remind us that slander wounds real people, yet God sees the truth and vindicates those who trust Him. The call for Christians is to guard their own speech and to treat every neighbour’s name with honour.
Scripture repeatedly warns against false witness and slander with the same seriousness given to other significant sins.
Bible Verses About Slander describe a real sin with real victims, and Scripture names several of them directly. The six accounts below show slander ranging from a personal lie told to protect someone’s guilt to an organized smear campaign meant to discredit a whole movement.
One of the clearest Bible Verses About Slander stories in the Old Testament involves a household servant. Genesis 39:14-20 describes Potiphar’s wife accusing Joseph of assaulting her after he refused her advances, a complete fabrication that sent him straight to prison. Joseph had done nothing but the right thing, and slander cost him his freedom anyway. His story shows that doing right does not guarantee protection from a convincing lie.
Matthew 28:11-15 describes the chief priests bribing the soldiers guarding Jesus’ tomb to say His disciples had stolen the body while they slept, a story the leaders knew was false since the guards had been unconscious with fear, not asleep. This slander was organized at the highest level specifically to discredit the resurrection before it could spread.
Daniel 6:4-13 describes officials who, unable to find any real fault in Daniel, maneuvered the king into a law that would make his normal prayer life illegal, then reported him for breaking it. They did not lie about what Daniel did, but they slandered his character by framing ordinary faithfulness as rebellion against the king.
Acts 21:27-29 describes a crowd in Jerusalem seizing Paul after wrongly assuming he had brought a Gentile into a restricted area of the temple, a charge that was simply untrue but spread fast enough to start a riot. Paul nearly lost his life over an accusation that had no basis in anything he had actually done.
Mark 3:22 and Matthew 12:24 describe the Pharisees responding to Jesus’ healing and deliverance ministry by claiming He cast out demons by the power of Satan himself, turning an obvious act of good into something sinister. This was slander aimed at the most important reputation in the Gospels, twisting compassion into accusation because the truth was inconvenient to the leaders’ authority.
2 Samuel 15:1-6 describes Absalom positioning himself at the city gate, telling people who came for judgment that David had no one to properly hear their cases and that he, Absalom, would judge them better. He never had to say David was a bad king outright; he simply implied it steadily until he had stolen the hearts of Israel away from his own father.
Potiphar’s wife’s lie, the bribed guards, Daniel’s framed faithfulness, the false charge against Paul, the twisted accusation against Jesus, and Absalom’s quiet undermining all did real damage to real people. Bible Verses About Slander take this seriously because none of these six were guilty of what they were accused of, and in several cases, the lie nearly won.
Lord, when I am tempted to twist the truth about someone the way Potiphar’s wife did, stop me before the words leave my mouth. Keep me from organizing or joining in a false story the way the chief priests did. Guard me from Daniel’s rivals’ pattern of framing someone’s faithfulness as a fault. When I am the one falsely accused like Paul or like Jesus Himself, give me the same composure they showed. And keep me from Absalom’s quiet habit of undermining someone’s reputation just to build my own. Amen.
These Bible Verses About Slander are meant to change behavior, not just inform it. Like Joseph, keep living with integrity even when a lie about you has already spread; the truth caught up eventually. Watch for Daniel’s rivals’ tactic of reframing someone’s ordinary good behavior as a hidden problem. Before repeating an accusation, ask whether you actually witnessed what happened or only heard it secondhand, the way the crowd did with Paul. Notice, as the Pharisees did not, when you are rejecting someone’s good work simply because you dislike their authority. And be honest with yourself about any Absalom-style habit of subtly making yourself look better by making someone else look worse.
Sit with these Bible Verses About Slander and consider two honest questions. Daniel did nothing wrong and was accused anyway because his integrity made others look bad by comparison. Has someone’s good character ever made you want to find fault with them? Absalom never told an outright lie, only a steady implication. Have you ever undermined someone’s reputation through hints rather than honest words?
In the Greek New Testament the word diabolos, which gives us the English word devil, simply means a slanderer or accuser. Paul uses its plural in 1 Timothy 3:11 and Titus 2:3, where the older English reads “slanderers” and “false accusers.” That detail changes how the Bible Verses About Slander read. When someone spreads damaging lies about a neighbor, they are borrowing the enemy’s own job description, even if the lie is whispered over a fence rather than shouted from a pulpit.
Revelation 12:10 names him as “the accuser of our brethren,” who accuses them before our God day and night. Nothing in that is meant to scare anyone. It tells us whose side we stand on when we choose truthful words. A believer who refuses to pass along a damaging lie is doing something with real weight, even when nobody ever finds out about it.
It also explains why Scripture treats slander as more than rudeness. Rudeness annoys. Slander tries to do what the accuser does, which is to get a person condemned in the minds of others before they have been heard.
A fair question comes up often: if I tell the truth about someone and it hurts their reputation, is that slander? Not necessarily. Slander involves falsehood, exaggeration or malice, or truth told only to wreck someone. Honest correction is something else. Proverbs 27:6 says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.” A friend who tells you privately that you have been unfair to your staff is wounding you for your good.
Paul gives the test in Ephesians 4:15, where he speaks of “speaking the truth in love.” Both halves matter. Truth without love turns into a weapon, and love without truth turns into flattery. Before saying anything about a person, it helps to ask four plain questions. Is it true? Is it mine to say? Does the right person need to hear it? Am I saying it to help or to hurt?
When the answers are muddy, waiting a day is nearly always wise. Anger tells a story very quickly and edits very badly. Many of the Bible Verses About Slander are really asking us to slow down between feeling and speaking.
Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.” Picture a small contractor in a town of a few thousand people. His whole business runs on one thing, which is that people believe he does honest work. A single rumor at the hardware store counter, that he cut corners on a roof, can empty his schedule within weeks, and he may never learn where it started.
Scripture treats a reputation as something with real value, which is why destroying one counts as more than bad manners. Ecclesiastes 7:1 makes the same point with a perfume picture: “A good name is better than precious ointment.” Ointment fills a room and lingers. So does a person’s name, for good or for ill.
None of this means we should fret over every opinion about us. Jesus was called a glutton and a drunkard, and he went on with his work. But it does mean we guard other people’s names the way we hope ours would be guarded. Matthew 7:12 puts it simply: “all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”
Some of the cruelest talk happens at a table full of laughter. Someone does an impression of the absent coworker, another adds a nickname, and soon a whole group has agreed on what kind of person she is. Proverbs 26:18-19 does not let that pass: “As a mad man who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith, Am not I in sport?”
The man in that proverb is throwing flaming sticks and calling it play. The word sport in the old English means joking or fun. Scripture is blunt that a smile on the speaker’s face does not change what lands on the target. And the target usually hears about it. Somebody always repeats it, and the laughter that was warm at lunch becomes a cold sentence in the person’s ear by evening.
A practical response is available even if you are not the one telling the joke. You can stay quiet instead of laughing, or you can say something kind and true about the person right after. It takes a little courage, and it often changes the whole mood of the table. People are usually relieved when somebody finally steps out of the pattern.
Jesus said in Matthew 12:36, “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” Every idle word. He was not speaking about text messages, but the principle reaches them easily. A hurried comment under a neighborhood post, a screenshot passed to a friend, a thread where several people pile onto one person: all of it is speech, and none of it disappears when the screen goes dark.
Written words are different from spoken ones in one painful way. Spoken slander fades from memory. Typed slander can be searched, copied and found years later by an employer or a child. Proverbs 10:19 gives older wisdom for a newer problem: “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise.” Often the wise move is simply not to post.
If a false statement is seriously damaging your work or family, going straight to the person first, as Matthew 18 teaches, is a good beginning. For something that threatens your livelihood or safety, it is also sensible to seek advice from a trusted pastor or a qualified legal adviser rather than answering in anger online.
James 4:11 reads, “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.” That is a dense sentence, but the point is simple. When we run a brother down, we are quietly taking a seat that is not ours. We decide who is guilty, and we pass sentence without a trial.
The next verse asks the sharp question: “There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” Think of two people talking in a church parking lot about a family whose marriage has just broken. Each knows a fragment, and each fills in the rest with assumptions. By the time they drive away, a verdict has been reached about people who were never asked a single question.
Several of the Bible Verses About Slander circle around this same idea. We do not see motives. We do not see the whole story. God does, and he is far more merciful with the facts than we tend to be with our guesses.
Jesus traced harmful speech back to its source in Matthew 15:19, saying, “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” False witness is on that list because it starts as a feeling. Resentment, envy or fear usually shows up before the lie does. If you catch yourself wanting to make a person look small, it is worth asking what you are really afraid of losing to them.
Paul gives a clear instruction in Ephesians 4:31: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.” Notice that evil speaking sits in a list with bitterness and anger. Deal with the bitterness and the speaking has far less fuel. One simple habit is to pray for the person by name, even briefly and even through clenched teeth. It is hard to keep tearing down someone you have just asked God to bless.
A short prayer might go like this. Lord, I have said things that were not fair, and I have listened when I should have walked away. Cleanse my heart, give me a steady tongue, and help me speak about others the way I would want to be spoken about. Amen.
Exodus 20:16 says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” In ancient Israel there were no police files or video footage. A person’s life, land or family could turn on what two or three neighbors said at the town gate. A lying witness could take a man’s inheritance or even his life. Deuteronomy 19:15 required more than one witness for any charge, which shows how seriously God wanted rumor kept out of justice.
That setting makes the command feel heavier. It was written for people who knew exactly how fast a false word could become a sentence. Most of us will never stand in a courtroom, yet we hold small trials all the time, around a dinner table or on a phone call, and the person on trial is never in the room to answer. The Bible Verses About Slander carry that old courtroom seriousness into daily speech.
One practical way to honor the commandment is to ask a question before repeating a claim: did I see this, or did I hear it? If I only heard it, I do not yet have a witness’s knowledge, only a rumor. Saying “I do not know that, so I will not say it” is a quiet form of integrity that costs almost nothing and can protect someone from real harm.
Related topics on this site include Bible Verses About Raising Children, Bible Verses For Romantic Love, Bible Verses About Repentance, Bible Verses For Happiness, Bible Verses For Forgiveness, Bible Verses About Perseverance and Strength, Bible Verses About Love and Relationships, Bible Verses About Peace and Worry, Bible Verses For Joy, Bible Verses About Faith Over Fear and Bible Verses For Love.
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In Scripture, slander means speaking about someone in a way that harms their reputation, whether through outright lies, twisted half-truths or malicious whispering.
This page brings together 5 King James Version references about slander, drawn from 5 different books of the Bible.
Yes, the verses referenced on this page, including Exodus 20:16, are quoted according to the King James Version (KJV), and are suitable for daily reading, memorization, or devotional use.
Beyond the references highlighted on this page, slander appears throughout Scripture in books such as Exodus, Leviticus, Matthew, Ephesians, Titus; this collection focuses on some of the clearest examples.
These slander verses are drawn from books including Exodus, Leviticus, Matthew, Ephesians, Titus.
