The Ninth
Commandment reads:
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
The
problem with bearing false witness that harms a neighbour is that you
then cannot earn the Kingdom of Heaven.
It
does not matter that the harm is minuscule as long as the lie did
cause harm.
Harm
not only deals with monetary loss or destruction of property caused
by the lie, but especially if it deals with the destruction of the
persons reputation.
Then
is the person who bore false witness condemned to hell for eternity? Not
necessarily.
To
regain his salvation the false witness must undue all the harm
that was caused to the person. Must contact everyone that heard the
lie and confess to them of the lie.
It
is not sufficient to merely correct your lie but must also correct
all the lies told by everyone involved in the incident that you know
about. Even
then it is not sufficient.
You
must make positive that all the harm
has been undone.
(Also see my post of 2/2/13 re. You Lie For Someone Else).
