Thoughtless, slanderous, unkind words,
What a deadly work they do!
Working trouble and confusion
In this world, as we pass through.

They in Eden’s garden started
By the serpent’s subtile breath!
And have traveled down the ages,
Working ruin, pain and death.

Words to us may seem but little,
Spoken quickly, quickly past;
Either for us, or against us—
They’ll be witnesses at last.

Every word that we have spoken,
Jesus tells us in His Word,
We must give a strict account of—
When we stand before the Lord.

Words long since by us forgotten,
There will meet us at His throne;
All their hideousness and vileness
Then shall unto us be shown.

Many lives we know are blighted
By suspicion’s cruel breath:
Gossip, scandal, evil speaking,
Often wound a soul to death.

For our tongues are so unruly;
Ofttimes set on fire of hell;
Being full of deadly poison—
All their evil who can tell?

Set a watch before our mouth, Lord!
Keep our lips, O Lord, we pray;
That they may meet Thine approval,
When we see Thee in that day.

E. M. Exton, in The Christian
Workers Magazine (Chicago, Illinois:
Moody Bible Institute), Volume 18,
number 10, June 1918, p. 782