Ephesians 4:25

25. We pass on now to consider in detail special forms of evil that must be put off.

Διὸ�. τὸ ψεῦδος after ἡ� and ἡ πλάνη cannot be simply ‘the habit of lying,’ it must include the whole false attitude towards life, the principle of selfishness from which every form of evil springs.

λαλεῖτε�. The first result will be resolute truthfulness in speech. This quality according to Zechariah 8:3; Zechariah 8:16 f. (cf. Psalms 15:2 and John 1:17) was to characterize the inhabitants of the restored Israel.

ὅτι ἐσμὲν�. Cf. Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:25. At first sight this is a strange reason for speaking truth to one another. The ground of it becomes clearer on reflection. All hope of mutual understanding, all social intercourse, all effective corporate action is bound up with a deep sense of the sacredness of language as our chief means of communication. Lying is before all things an anti-social sin. In Colossians 3:9 the exhortation is given in the negative form μὴ ψεύδεσθε εἰς�.