“Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is His delight…Honest weights and scales are the Lord’s; all the weights in the bag are His work…Diverse weights and diverse measures, they are both alike, an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs 11:1, 16:11, 20:10).
Honesty is not optional for a child of the God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Twice in the Torah, God clearly instructed His redeemed people to be scrupulously honest: “You shall do no injustice in judgment, in measurement of length, weight, or volume. You shall have honest scales, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a heavy and a light. You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. You shall have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure, that your days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. For all who do such things, all who behave unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16).
Note carefully that even though about five hundred years separated the days of Moses from the days of Solomon, God still abominated the unrighteous behavior of dishonesty. In Micah’s day–roughly two centuries after Solomon’s–Jehovah still did not approve of the use of “wicked scales” and “deceitful weights” (Micah 6:11).
Dishonesty is a form of lying. God hates lying (Proverbs 6:16-17), and “all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).
Not only is honesty the best policy, it should be the only policy.
