25 Bible Verses About the Tongue and Guarding Your Mouth

Some sins you can walk away from. A sentence, once it is out, belongs to whoever heard it, which may be why you are reading this after a conversation rather than before one.

Here are 25 Bible verses about the tongue, all in the King James Version, grouped into eight themes with a short thought on each and one way to pray them at the end. One clarification first: this page is about the tongue as speech, not the gift of tongues in Acts, which is linked at the end.

Read also: 25 Powerful Lessons from the Book of Proverbs

Bible Verses About the Tongue and Its Power

Before Scripture asks anything of you, it tells you what you are holding. These four verses on the power of the tongue describe rather than instruct, and mean to alarm.

1. Proverbs 18:20-21

A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Verse 20 is the key to the famous half: a man eats what his own mouth produced. Read together, the two verses are about living inside what you have said, not about words making things from nothing. “Power” here is yad, the ordinary Hebrew word for hand.

2. James 3:5

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

Something this small should not be able to do this much, and the disproportion is the point. A fire needs no plan, only a spark and something dry.

3. James 3:6

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

The tongue in this verse is the thing set alight rather than the source of the flame, which is part of why watching your words never quite settles the problem.

4. Proverbs 12:18

There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.

In the King James this is about a person, not about rash words: “there is that speaketh.” Some people talk that way as a habit and would call it honesty.

Bible Verses About Taming and Controlling the Tongue

James wrote this chapter to people who wanted to be teachers (James 3:1), so the warning starts with the ambition to be heard.

5. James 3:2

For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.

Writing “we,” James puts himself inside the problem. And the standard he names runs oddly: the man who never offends in word would be complete throughout, because speech is the hardest part.

6. James 3:3-4

Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth.

Both pictures are about steering. A bit decides where a horse goes and a helm where a ship goes, so the question is who holds yours.

7. James 3:7-8

For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

That list of animals marks where human capability stops. James offers no technique that finally works, and softening him into one is dishonest, though he plainly still asks for the effort. Where Scripture does show a way, it is prayer.

8. James 1:26

If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

The man is self-deceived rather than dishonest: he believes his faith is in order, and his speech is the evidence he never thought to check.

Read also: The Book of James Summary By Chapter (1-5)

Bible Verses About Where Our Words Come From

If the tongue cannot be fixed at the level of the tongue, the trouble sits further back. Jesus says where.

9. Matthew 12:34

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

Jesus asks how they can speak good things, which reads as a denial that they are able, not a call to try harder, and he says it to the Pharisees mid-confrontation.

10. Luke 6:45

A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.

Grudges qualify as treasure. So do rehearsed arguments, and any private tally of what people owe you. Speech turns out to be less a performance than an inventory.

11. Proverbs 16:23

The heart of the wise teacheth his mouth, and addeth learning to his lips.

The heart is called a teacher here, and teaching takes time. Which suggests the wise answer in a hard moment was mostly prepared beforehand.

Bible Verses About Guarding Your Mouth

These are the verses about guarding your tongue that people want when they ask what the Bible says about keeping your mouth shut. Scripture commends restraint plainly, though Ecclesiastes 3:7 also sets a time to keep silence beside a time to speak.

12. Proverbs 21:23

Whoso keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from troubles.

One verb does both halves: keep the mouth, and by that keep the soul. The proverb names a kind of trouble you can shut the door on from the inside.

13. Proverbs 10:19

In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise.

Anyone who thinks out loud has just been told where their risk sits. “Wanteth not” means there is no shortage of: more said, more chances of something wrong.

14. Psalm 17:3

Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

God searched him in the night, and “I am purposed” is a decision already made rather than one taken under pressure. The verse runs heart first, mouth second.

Bible Verses About a Lying Tongue and a Talebearer

Scripture does not leave these sins vague. It names them as things God hates rather than social lapses, and its word for a gossip is talebearer, someone who carries stories between people.

15. Proverbs 6:16-19

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.

Count them. Two of the seven are plainly speech, and a third, sowing discord, usually is too. They sit beside hands that shed innocent blood, unmarked as lesser.

16. Proverbs 26:20

Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth.

James called the tongue a fire; this proverb names the fuel. Strife usually dies because it ran out of wood, so you can starve a conflict you cannot fix.

17. Proverbs 20:19

He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.

Here the listener is addressed rather than the gossip, and the reason given is flattery: a man who brings you news of others is telling you something about yourself.

18. Leviticus 19:16

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.

Gossip is in the law, not only the wisdom books, signed “I am the LORD,” and nothing here requires the story being carried to be false.

19. Psalm 120:2-3

Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, and from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given unto thee? or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue?

If you came here because of what was said about you, this is your verse. The psalmist asks God for deliverance rather than for the last word.

Bible Verses About the Right Use of the Tongue

Everything so far has been damage and restraint. But Scripture never treats the tongue as only a hazard, so stopping at guarding your mouth gets you half of it.

20. Ephesians 4:29

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

Paul’s test is whether a thing builds, which is a harder question than whether it is true or even kind. And “unto the hearers” ties it to the person in front of you.

21. Colossians 4:6

Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Grace and salt is a deliberate pairing: salt has bite, and bland is its opposite. Paul is writing here about how believers answer outsiders.

22. Proverbs 27:5-6

Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

Some wounds are faithful and some affection is a lie. A friend who will never say a hard thing to you may be choosing your comfort over your good.

Bible Verses to Pray Over Your Own Mouth

No one tames the tongue by deciding to. What the men who wrote Scripture did instead was ask, and both of these are prayers, not resolutions.

23. Psalm 141:3

Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.

David asks God to post the guard. In Psalm 39:1 he takes the other route, keeping his own mouth with a bridle. Gates are watched before trouble arrives.

24. Ecclesiastes 5:2

Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.

This is the one verse here about speech aimed at God rather than people, and its reason is that he is God and you are not. Careless praying is treated as a real risk.

Bible Verses for When You Have Already Said It

If you came here because of something you said, the verses above have done their work. This one is what comes next.

25. Isaiah 6:5-7

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Isaiah sees God and the first thing he indicts is his own mouth. Instead of reassurance or a plan for improvement, a seraph lays the coal on the place he named, and the word that follows is that his iniquity is gone.

Read also: How to Forgive Yourself for Hurting Someone You Love

How to Actually Use These Verses

Take Psalm 141:3 and use it forward instead of backward.

Most of us reach for verses about speech after the damage. David asks God to set a watch before his mouth, and a watch set afterwards is not a watch. So if you can see a conversation coming this week, take that one.

Before you walk into it, pray one line: Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. Then stop there. Do not add a resolution about how you will handle it: Psalm 39:1 is David resolving it himself, and Psalm 141:3 is him asking God to do it. In that prayer the guard is God, not you.

Afterwards, however it went, read Isaiah 6:5-7 once, for the picture of what God does with a mouth that has been confessed rather than as proof you did fine.

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