You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small. You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. A full and fair weight you shall have. A full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land of the Lord your God has given you. For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the Lord your God.
– Deuteronomy 25:13–16
So what this law in Deuteronomy 25:13–16 is addressing, is the temptation for people to be unjust and dishonest in their dealings with others. To use different measurements and different weights in ways that would presumably advantage the person who’s doing that, and disadvantaged the person they are dealing with. And God says, “Don’t do it.” All who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the Lord your God.
God, we confess our tendency to try to hide things from you or live like you don’t know this or that in our lives.
Could there be any more serious word from God to describe dishonesty before him and before others, than abomination? And ways that we see reiterated over and over and over again in the Bible, especially . Even just think about Acts chapter five, and Ananais and Sapphira and their dishonesty before God, and both of them falling over dead on the spot.
This Verse Prays For Honesty
Oh God, we pray that you would help us to take honesty, seriously. God, we pray that you’d help us to live honestly before you. God, we confess our tendency to try to hide things from you or live like you don’t know this or that in our lives. So God, help us to honestly and quickly confess sin in our lives. God, not try to cover over our sin, but to confess our sin before you God. Help us to live with honesty and integrity before you. And God, we pray that you’d help us to live with honesty and integrity before others.
Deuteronomy 25:13–16 Prays That We Speak The Truth
So God, we pray that we would speak truth, not slander, not lies. God, that we would speak truth, that we would seek truth, God, especially in a world where we get information from so many different sides. And we’re so quick to assume because we saw this or read that, that it’s true. God help us to hold fast to truth in your word, over and above everything.
And then God, to seek and to speak truth in every way in our lives. God, we pray that you would keep every single one of us. I pray this in my own life. I pray this for every single person who’s listening to this right now. God, we pray that you would keep us from acting dishonestly in any way. The name of the one who alone has all honesty and integrity, live your life through us. We pray in Jesus’s name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
