LEV525 Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile. Psalm 34:14. … The rabbis regarded [Genesis 3:5, in which the serpent openly accused God of harboring sentiments of jealousy] as history's first slanderous expression and used it as an illustration of the frightful consequences of slander. Adam and Eve were deprived of their immortality. The serpent was condemned to become an object of man's deep loathing (Tanchuma, Bereshit 8). The frequency with which the Bible denounces gossip and slander attest to the persistence of this habit in society. Gossip is motivated by malice, arrogance, love of mischief, idle garrulity, and boredom. People who would normally shrink from inflicting physical injury on anyone else may have no scruples about swinging poisonous verbal arrows at their fellow-men. The biblical injunction "Thou shall not go up and down as a talebearer among the people" [this verse] is a comprehensive prohibition of malicious calumny as well as idle tattling. Truth is no defense against the sin of talebearing. The second half of the verse which prohibits gossip reads as follows: "neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of the neighbor." This sequence is highly significant. It is a dire warning of the potentially deadly consequences of gossip. There is an additional biblical injunction relating primarily to malicious slander. "Thou shall not take up [or circulate] a false report" (Exodus 23:1). According to rabbinical interpretation, this injunction is mainly addressed to those who lend a willing ear to false rumors (Mechilta 196; Onkelos, Exodus 23:1). The nefariousness of gossip is enlarged upon in great detail in the Hagiographa. Talebearers create discord among friends (Proverbs 16:28). They destroy their neighbors (Proverbs 11:9). They readily reveal confidential secrets (Proverbs 11:13, 20:19). He who has slander on his tongue cannot be close to God (Psalms 15:1,3).