Proverbs 26:28

Proverbs 26:28, in plain English

Whether someone lies or flatters, they're using their words as weapons that hurt others, and those hurt relationships are on their hands.

Why it's here

You're seeing the full spectrum of dishonest speech — from outright lies to false praise. Both destroy people and relationships, and the person doing the lying or flattering bears responsibility for that damage.

Who's speaking

Solomon, wrapping up this section on destructive speech by showing you that deception in all its forms is fundamentally hateful toward others.

Where it sits in the story

This concludes a sustained teaching about the power of words. Proverbs opened this chapter warning about fools and their speech; it closes by showing you that lying and flattering, though they seem different, serve the same destructive purpose. Choose truth and genuine honor instead.

The scholarly reading

Both the lying tongue and the flattering mouth are fundamentally destructive: one crushes through false accusation, the other through seductive deception, and both come to harbor hatred against those they harm.

Language and setting

This final verse of the section on harmful speech synthesizes the proverb collection's concern with language as a tool of destruction. The juxtaposition of the 'lying tongue' and 'flattering mouth' suggests that deception takes multiple forms—direct falsehood and indirect seduction—and that both emerge from the same malevolent root. In the social world of the school, both the false accuser and the smooth flatterer represented recognizable threats.

Voice

The wisdom teacher, concluding a sustained meditation on the dangers of disordered speech with a final assertion of the internal contradiction in the liar's position: he hates those he deceives.

Significance

This verse brings to closure the lengthy section on conflict, gossip, and deception (verses 20-28) and reaffirms the wisdom tradition's conviction that speech reveals character and that corrupted language corrupts the speaker. It stands as a fitting penultimate statement before the final proverb, preparing the reader for the recognition that wisdom is ultimately about alignment between word and deed, between public profession and private reality.

26Though his hatred is concealed by deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.

27He who digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him.

28A lying tongue hates those it crushes, and a flattering mouth causes ruin.

Read all of Proverbs 26 — As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. The proverbs get sharper — and funnier — here.