"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

The Eight Commandment



"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.


" The eighth commandment forbids misinterpreting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth.



"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. [252]

It was said to the men of old, "You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn." [253]

The eighth commandment forbids misinterpreting the truth in our relations with others.

This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant ...

The duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from it."

(252. Ex 20:16; cf. Deut 5:20; 253. Mt 5:33.)

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Catechism of the Catholic Church, USSC Inc, 1994, p. 591-3.)

And he went out from thence, and came into his own country;
And his disciples follow him.

And when the sabbath day was come, He began to teach in the synagogue:
And many hearing him were astonished, saying,
From whence hath this man these things?

And what wisdom is this which is given unto him,
That even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses,
And of Juda, and Simon?


And are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

Mark 6:1-3