In scripture we read:

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”

Exodus 20:16

When we think of the Eighth Commandment, our minds usually fly straight to a courtroom. We picture a witness taking an oath, hand on a Bible, swearing to tell the truth. In ancient Israel, this law was indeed a literal matter of life and death; false testimony in a trial could lead to an innocent person being exiled or executed.

But God’s law was never meant to just keep us out of perjury. It was designed to teach us how to love.

Jesus Confirms the Truth Behind the Command

Jesus didn’t lower the bar on the Old Testament law; He raised it by showing us its heart. He made it clear that God’s standards haven’t expired. When a young man explicitly asked Jesus which laws mattered most, Jesus didn’t skip a beat—He pointed him right back to the Ten Commandments, explicitly naming the eighth:

“Jesus replied, ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony…’” 

Matthew 19:18

But Jesus didn’t just want us checking a box on a legal checklist. In the Sermon on the Mount, He took this command out of the courtroom and brought it directly into our everyday conversations. To show us what this looks like in practice, He spoke directly about the integrity of our promises:

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’  But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne;  or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Matthew 5:33-37

Jesus deepened the commandment by calling His followers to a life where truth does not need extra decoration, swearing, or spin. What it really means is that God values truth because He is truth. To give false testimony is to use words as a weapon instead of a tool for justice and love. A simple yes or no should be enough because a disciple’s everyday character should be inherently trustworthy.

But Jesus didn’t stop there. In the exact same sermon, He reveals that truth and love are completely inseparable. He advises us to go much further than the bare minimum of the law—challenging us to do more than what is requested, to lay down our rights, and to actively love our enemies:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:38-48

How loving your enemy roots the Eighth Commandment

How does loving an enemy or walking an extra mile connect back to not giving false testimony?

It changes our entire motivation for speaking. When someone hurts us, insults us, or treats us unfairly, our natural human instinct is to strike back with our words. We weaponize the truth, repeat their failures to others, or subtly twist the facts to make them look as bad as possible. In essence, we give false testimony against them in the courtroom of public opinion to protect our own pride.

Jesus shatters that defensive mindset. By calling us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, He is asking us to protect their dignity, even when they destroy ours.

When we apply the Eighth Commandment through this lens of radical love, it means we refuse to use words to get even. We don’t gossip about the coworker who threw us under the bus. We don’t spin a story to make an ex-spouse look terrible. Instead, we choose a level of truthfulness that is covered in grace — reflecting a heavenly Father who pours out His blessings on both the righteous and the unrighteous.

Beyond the Courtroom: What It Means Today

This commandment reaches into the messy realities of 21st-century life. It speaks directly to our text messages, our social media feeds, our family dinner tables, our workplaces, and our church hallways.

False testimony is any speech that damages a neighbor’s good name without cause. In our modern world, that looks like:

• Lies and Exaggeration: Tweaking the numbers or inflating a story to make ourselves look better.
• Spin and Manipulation: Presenting a biased version of events that slants the listener against someone else.
• Gossip and Rumors: Repeating unverified information or whispering about someone’s flaws when they aren’t around to defend themselves.

The practical application is simple but demanding: tell the truth, check facts before hitting “share,” avoid gossip, and choose words that build trust rather than destroy it. It means refusing to twist facts, even when a little bit of deception would protect our pride.

Conclusion: Words that Reflect the Creator

Ultimately, the Eighth Commandment is about protecting three sacred things: trust, justice, and human dignity.

Every time we speak, we are making a choice. We can use our tongues to tear down our neighbor’s reputation, or we can use them to build up a community rooted in honesty. When we commit to radical, gentle truthfulness in a world full of fake news and casual gossip, we do something beautiful: we reflect the very character of God.

Let’s strive to be people whose words can be believed, whose “yes” means yes, and whose speech brings life to everyone who hears it.

Further insights

Jesus himself gives much more depth to the topic than I ever could. Below is an extract from the visions of Maria Valtorta where He addresses this commandment in a speech rather at the beginning of his official journey.

“« It is said: “You shall not bear false witness.”

What is there more nauseating than a liar? Can we not say that he joins cruelty to impurity? Of course, we can. A liar, I am talking of a liar in grave matters, is murderer. Nay: he is more than a murderer. A murderer kills only the body. A liar kills also a good name, the memory of a man. He is, therefore, twice a murderer. He is an unpunished murderer because he does not shed blood, but he injures the reputation both of the person calumniated and of the whole family. And I will not take into consideration the case of the person who brings about the death of his neighbour by swearing false witness. The coal of Gehenna is already piled upon such person. I am only talking of those who make false insinuations by telling lies and stir up other people against an innocent person. Why do they do that? Either out of hatred, without any reason, or out of greed to get what another man possesses, or out of fear.

Hatred. Only a friend of Satan hates. A good person does not hate. Never. For no reason whatsoever. Even if he is scorned and damaged, he forgives. He never hates. Hatred is the witness that a lost soul bears of itself and is the best witness in favor of an innocent man. Because hatred is the revolt of evil against good. Who is good does not need to be forgiven.

Greed. He has what I have not got. I want what he has. But only by disparaging him I can obtain his position. And I am going to do it. Will I be lying? What does it matter? Will I be stealing? What does it matter? Will I ruin a whole family? What does it matter?” Of the many questions that the shrewd liar asks himself, he forgets, he wants to forget one question. This one: “And if I should be found out?” He does not ask himself such question, because a prey to pride and greed, he is like one whose eyes are closed. He does not see the danger. He is also like a drunk man. He is intoxicated with a satanic wine and does not consider that God is stronger than Satan and takes vengeance of the calumniated man. The liar has given himself to Falsehood and foolishly relies on its protection.

Fear. Many a time man slanders to excuse himself. It is the most common form of falsehood. Evil has been done. We are afraid it might be found out as our deed. Then, using and abusing the esteem in which we are still held by other people, we upset the situation, and we saddle someone else, of whose honesty only we are afraid, with the evil deed we accomplished. We also do it, because at times our neighbour has been the unintentional witness of our evil action, and we want to be secure from his eventual witness. So we accuse him to make him unpopular and thus, if he should speak, no one may believe him.

Behave properly! And you will never need such falsehood. Do you not consider,

when you lie, what a heavy burden you take upon yourselves? It is made of subjection to the evil spirit, of perpetual fear of being found out, and of the necessity of remembering the lie, also after years, in all the circumstances and details in which it was told, without contradicting oneself. The labor of a galley-slave! If it only helped to gain Heaven! Instead it serves only to prepare a place in hell!

Be frank. How lovely are the lips of a man who does not know falsehood! He may be poor, coarse, unknown? He is, is he? But he is still a king. Because he is sincere. And sincerity is more regal than gold and diadems, and elevates one above the crowds more than a throne, and procures a greater court of good people than a monarch has. Intimacy with a sincere man gives safety and comfort. Whereas friendship with an insincere person, or even to be near such a person, causes a feeling of uneasiness. Since the truth soon comes to light in a thousand ways, why does he who lies not consider that afterwards he will always be suspected? How can one believe what he says?

Even if he speaks the truth, and who hears him wants to believe him, there is always a doubt: “Is he lying also now?” You may ask: “Where is the false witness?” Every lie is a false witness. Not only legal ones.

Be simple, like God and a child. Be truthful every moment of your lives. Do you want to be considered good? Be truly so. Even if a scandalmonger should wish to speak evil of you, one hundred good people will say: “No. It is not true. He is good. His deeds speak of him.”

In one of the sapiential books it is said: “A scoundrel, a vicious man, he goes with a leer on his lips… Deceit in his heart, always scheming evil, he sows dissension… There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that His soul abhors: a haughty look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that weaves wicked plots, feet that hurry to do evil, a false witness who lies with every breath, a man who sows dissension among brothers… His own lips are to blame when the wicked man is entrapped. A false witness is nothing but deceit. Lips that tell the truth abide firm forever, the tongue that lies lasts only for a moment. The words of a backbiter sound simple, but they pierce man’s heart. The enemy brooding over treason is known by his speech. Do not trust him when he whispers, because he carries seven evils in his heart. He deceitfully conceals his hatred, but his wickedness will be disclosed… The man who digs a pit falls into it, the stone comes back on him that rolls it.”

130.Jesus at the «Clear Water»: « You Shall Not Bear False Witness. » 426

The sin of falsehood is as old as the world and the thought of the wise man concerning it is unchanged, unchanged is also the judgement of God on those who lie. I say: have only one language. May your “yes” be always “yes” and your “no” be always “no”, also before mighty ones and tyrants. And you will receive great reward in Heaven for it. I say to you: be spontaneous like a child who by instinct goes towards him whom he perceives to be good without seeking anything but goodness. And he says what his own goodness makes him think, without considering whether he says too much and whether he may be reproached for it. »

« Go in peace. And may the Truth become your friend. »

Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the ManGod, chapter 130.Jesus at the «Clear Water»: « You Shall Not Bear False Witness. »

And here a lengthy, yet very relevant extract from what Maria Valtorta saw of the related speech on the Sermon of the Mount:

“Jesus is speaking: « One of the errors easily made by man is to have lack of honesty towards himself. And since man is rarely sincere and honest, he has made some provision for himself in order to be compelled to go along the way he wants. This curb, which, after all, as he is a fiery horse, he soon slackens or gives a pull, as he wishes, and thus changes his gait; or he removes it completely and does as he likes, without considering what reproach he may receive from God, from men and from his own conscience. That bit is the oath. But no oath is necessary amongst honest people and God never taught you it. On the contrary He commanded you: “You shall not bear false witness”, without any further addition. Because man ought to be frank without the need of anything except the loyalty of his word.

When in Deuteronomy mention is made of vows, also of the vows that are something which originated from a heart considered to be united to God, either through a feeling of need or a sentiment of gratitude, it is written: “Whatever passes your lips, you must keep to, and the vow that you have freely made with your own mouth to the Lord your God must be fulfilled.” Mention is always made of the word given, without anything else but the word. Who feels the need of taking an oath is neither sure of himself nor of the opinion his neighbour has of him. And who makes other people take an oath testifies thereby that he distrusts the frankness and honesty of the swearer. As you can see, the habit of taking an oath is one of the consequences of man’s moral dishonesty. And it is a shame for man. It is a double shame because man is not even faithful to the shameful thing which an oath is and by deriding God as easily as he derides his neighbour, he swears falsely with the greatest ease and calmness.

Can there be a more contemptible man than a perjurer? A perjurer in fact convinces his neighbour to believe him, often by using a sacred formula, thus calling God to be his accomplice and to stand surety for him, or by invoking his dearest affections: his father, mother, wife, children, his dead relatives, his very life and most essential organs, to support his false statements. He thus deceives his neighbour. He is an impious person, a thief, a traitor, a murderer. Of whom? Of God, of course, because he contaminates the Truth with his disgraceful lies and jeers at Him, daring Him: “Strike me, give me the lie, if You can. You are there, I am here and I laugh at it.” Of course, you may laugh, liars and gibers! But the moment will come when you will not laugh and that will happen when He, to Whom all power is entrusted, will appear to you, dreadful in His majesty, and simply by His aspect will make you stand to attention and will strike you with the lightening of His eyes, before His voice hurls you to your eternal destiny branding you with His curse. He is a thief because he takes possession of a reputation which he does not deserve. His neighbour, impressed by his oath, grants it to him, and the serpent adorns himself with it, pretending to be what he is not. He is a traitor because by his oath he promises something which he does not want to keep. He is a murderer: he kills either the honour of his fellow man depriving him of his reputation through false witness or he kills his own soul because a perjurer is a vile sinner in the eyes of God, Who sees the truth, also when no one else sees it. God cannot be deceived, neither by means of false words, nor by means of hypocritical deeds. He sees. He does not lose sight of each man for a moment. And there is no fortified stronghold or deep cellar which His eyes cannot penetrate. Also within you, God penetrates the stronghold which every man has round his heart. And He judges you not according to what you swear, but to what you do.

I will therefore substitute another order for the one given to you, when the oath enjoyed great favour to put a restraint on lies and on the easiness of failure to keep a promise. I do not say as the ancients said: “Do not swear falsely, but keep your oath”, but I say to you: “Never swear.” Neither by Heaven which is the throne of God, nor by the earth which is the stool of His feet, nor for Jerusalem and her Temple which are the City of the Great King and the House of the Lord our God.

Do not swear either by the graves of the deceased or by their souls. Graves are full of the dross of the inferior part of man, which is common also to animals, and with regard to their souls, leave them in their dwellings. Do not cause them to suffer or to be struck with horror, if they are the souls of just people already in the foreknowledge of God. And although they are in such foreknowledge, which is partial knowledge, because they will not possess God in the fullness of His brightness until the moment of Redemption, they can but suffer seeing you sinners. And if they are not just, do not increase their torture by reminding them ones in their pains. Do not deprive the former of anything, do not add anything to the latter. Why appeal to the dead? They cannot speak. The saints because charity prevents them from speaking: they would have to give you the lie too many times. The damned because hell does not open its gates and the damned only open their mouths to curse, and their voices are suffocated by the hatred of Satan and of the demons, because the damned are like demons.

Do not swear by the head of your father or of your mother, or by the head of your wife or of your innocent children. You have no right to do so. Are they perhaps money or merchandise? Are they a signature on a document? They are more and they are less than such things. They are blood and flesh of your own blood, man, but they are also free creatures and you cannot use them as slaves to guarantee your false statements. And they are less than your own signature, because you are intelligent, free and grown up, you are not interdicted, neither are you a child who does not know what he is doing and must be represented by his parents. You are a man gifted with reason and consequently responsible for your actions and you must act by yourself, employing, as a guarantee for your own deeds and words, your own honesty and your own frankness, the reputation that you enjoy with your neighbour, not the honesty, the frankness of your relatives and the reputation they enjoy. Are fathers responsible for their children? Yes, they are, but only as long as they are under age. After, everybody is responsible for himself. Not always just children are born of just parents, nor is it so that a holy woman is married to a holy man. Why then use the justice of a relative as a guarantee? Likewise, holy children may be born of a sinner, and as long as they are innocent, they are holy. Why then appeal to a pure soul for an impure act of yours, such as an oath which you wish to swear falsely?

Do not swear by your own head, your eyes, your tongue, your hands. You have no right to. Everything you have belongs to God. You are only the temporary guardians, the bankers of the moral or material treasures which God granted you. Why then make use of what does not belong to you? Can you add one hair to your head or change its colour? And if you cannot do that, why do you use your sight, your word, the freedom of your limbs to corroborate your oath? Do not challenge God. He could take you at your word and dry your eyes as He can dry up your orchards, or take your children away from you, or crush your houses to remind you that He is the Lord and you His subjects, and that who idolizes himself and thinks he is above God, challenging Him with his falsehood, is cursed.

Let your speech be simply: yes, it is; no, it is not. Nothing else. Any addition is suggested by the Evil one, who later will laugh at you, because you cannot remember anything and you will contradict yourself and you will be jeered at and recognised as a liar.

Be sincere, My children, both in your words and in your prayers. Do not behave like the hypocrites, who, when praying, love to stand in synagogues or in the corners of squares where they may be seen by people and praised as just and pious men, whereas, within their families, they are guilty towards God and towards their neighbour. Do you not consider that that is like a form of perjury? Why do you want to maintain as true what is not true in order to win a reputation which you do not deserve? An hypocritical prayer aims at saying: “I am truly a saint. I swear it in the presence of those who see me and cannot deny they saw me praying.” Like a veil laid on existing wickedness, a prayer said for such purposes becomes blasphemy.

Let God proclaim you saints and live in such a way that your whole life may shout on your behalf: “Here is a servant of God.” But you must be silent for your own sake. Do not allow your tongue to be urged by pride and thus become an object of scandal in the angels’ eyes. It would be better for you to become mute at once if you do not have the power to control pride and tongue, and you proclaim yourselves just and pleasing to God. leave that poor glory to proud and false people. Leave that fleeting reward to haughty and deceitful people! A poor reward! But that is what they want and they will not have any other, because you cannot have more than one. Either the true reward, the Heavenly one, which is eternal and just, or the sham one, the earthly one, which lasts as long as the life of man, and even less, and which is paid for, after this life, with a truly mortifying punishment, because it is an unjust reward.

Listen how you must pray with your lips and with your work and with your whole selves, urged by your hearts which do love God and feel He is your Father, but they always remember who the Creator is and what the creature is, and in the presence of God they are always full of reverential love, whether you are praying or are busy, whether you are walking or resting, earning or helping.

I said urged by your hearts. It is the first and essential feature. Because everything comes from your hearts and your minds: your words, your eyes, your deeds are like your hearts. A just man draws good from his just heart and the more he draws the more he finds, because the good done creates more good, like blood that is renewed circulating in the veins and flows back to the heart enriched with new elements taken from the oxygen, which it had absorbed or from the food juices, which it had assimilated. Whereas a wicked man can draw but fraud and poison from his gloomy heart full of fraud and poison, which grow more and more because they are corroborated by accumulating sins, while the blessings of God accumulate in a good man. You may be sure that it is the exuberance of the heart that overflows from lips and reveals itself in deeds.

Make your hearts humble, pure, loving, trustful and sincere and love God with the chaste love of a virgin for her bridegroom. I solemnly tell you that each soul is a virgin married to the Eternal Lover, to God Our Lord; this world is the time of engagement during which the guardian angel of every man is the spiritual paranymph, and all the hours and contingencies of life are as many maids pre-paring the nuptial trousseau. The hour of death is the hour for the accomplished wedding when the introduction, embrace and union take place and the soul can raise the veil of the bridal dress and throw itself into the arms of God and the Spouse will not cause scandal by loving so.

But for the time being, o souls still victimised in the bonds of the engagement to God, when you wish to speak to the Spouse, withdraw to the peace of your abode, above all to the peace of your inner abodes and, angels of flesh helped by your guardian angels, speak to the King of angels. Speak to your Father in the secrecy of your hearts and of your inner rooms. Leave outside everything that belongs to the world: eagerness to be noted and to edify, and the scruples of long prayers full of words, of monotonous, tepid words lacking love.

For God’s sake, get rid of standards in your prayers. There are really some people who waste many hours reciting a monologue only with their lips and which is a real soliloquy because not even the guardian angels listen to it; it is such a vain noise that they become absorbed in fervent prayer for the silly men guarded by them, in an effort to find a remedy. There are in fact some men who would not spend those hours in a different way, not even if God appeared to them saying: “The salvation of the world depends on your leaving such soulless manner of speech and going, shall we say, just to draw water from a well and pour it on to the ground for My sake and the sake of your fellow men.” There are indeed many who believe that their monologue is more important that the kindness in receiving a visitor or the charity in helping a person in need. They are souls which have fallen into the idolatry of prayer.

Prayer is an act of love. And one can love praying or baking bread, meditating or assisting a sick person, making a pilgrimage to the Temple or looking after the family, sacrificing a lamb or sacrificing one’s desires, even the honest desire to concentrate on the Lord. It is sufficient for you to have your whole selves and all your actions impregnated with love. Be not afraid! The Father sees, under-stands, listens, grants. How many graces are granted for one single, true perfect sigh of love! How much wealth for an intimate sacrifice made with love. Do not be like the Gentiles. God does not need to be told what He has to do for your needs. The pagans may tell their idols, which cannot understand. But you cannot tell God, the True Spiritual God, Who is not only God and King, but also your Father and knows what you need, even before you ask Him.

Ask and it will be given to you, look and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. Because whoever asks, will receive, whoever looks, will find and it will be opened to whomsoever knocks. When your child stretches his little hand towards you saying: “Father, I am hungry” do you perhaps give him a stone? Will you give him a snake if he asks for a fish? No, you will give him bread and fish, and caresses and blessings over and above, because it is pleasant for a father to nourish his son and see his happy smiles. If therefore you, whose hearts are imperfect, are capable of giving gifts to your children, out of a natural love that is common also to animals for their offspring, how much more will your Father, Who is in Heaven, grant to those who ask Him for the good and necessary things for their welfare. Do not be afraid to ask and do not be afraid not to receive!

However, I wish to warn you against an easy error: do not behave like those who are weak in their faith and in their love. Also amongst believers there are pagans whose poor religion is a mixture of superstition and faith, a building tampered with, into which all kinds of parasitic herbs have penetrated, so much so that it falls to pieces, and they, weak and pagans as they are, feel their faith is dying if they are not heard.

You ask. And you think it is fair to ask. And for that particular moment a certain grace may be right. But life does not end at that moment. And what is good today may not be good tomorrow. You do not know that, because you know only the present, and that is a grace of God, too. But God knows also the future. And God to save you a greater pain does not hear your prayers.

During My year of public life more than once I heard hearts moaning: “How much I suffered then, when God did not hear me. But now I say: ‘It was better thus, because that grace would have prevented me from reaching this hour of God’.” I heard others say to Me: “Why, Lord, do You not hear me? You grant it to everybody but not to me?” And yet, although I was sorry to see them suffer, I had to say: “I cannot”, because to hear them would have meant hindering their flight to a perfect life.

Also the Father sometimes says: “I cannot.” Not because He cannot satisfy the request immediately, but because He does not want to satisfy it in view of future consequences. Listen. A child is suffering from intestinal trouble. His mother calls a doctor and the doctor says: “He must fast to be cured.” The mother, always pitiful, joins her moaning to her son’s. She thinks that the doctor’s order is severe and hard. She feels that such fasting and crying may be detrimental to her son. But the doctor is inflexible. At last he says: “Woman, I know, you don’t. Do you want to lose your son or do you want me to save him?” The mother shouts: “I want him to live.” “In that case” says the doctor “I cannot let him have any food. It would kill him.” Also the Father sometimes says so. You, pitiful mothers of your own ego, do not want to hear it weep because some grace has been denied. But God says: “I cannot. It would do you harm.” The day will come, or eternity will come, when you will say: “Thank You, my God, for not listening to my foolishness!”

What I said with regard to prayers, I say with regard to fasting. When you fast, do not look sad, as hypocrites do, who on purpose disfigure their faces that the world may know and believe that they are fasting, even if it is not true. They also have received their reward with the praise of the world, and will not receive another one. Instead, when you fast, look happy, wash your faces thoroughly so that they may look fresh and smooth, put oil on your heads and scents on your hair and smile like one who has been well fed. Oh! Truly there is no food that nourishes as much as love does! And who fasts with a loving spirit, feeds on love! I solemnly tell you that even if the world calls you “vain” and “publicans”, the Father will see your heroic secret and will give you a double reward. One for your fasting and the other for the sacrifice of not being praised for it.

Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the ManGod, chapter 172. The Sermon of the Mount. The Beatitudes (Part Three)