James 4:11-12

v11: “Our lips must be guided by the law of kindness as well as by truth and justice.” We must watch our speech, and when we find that “we cannot speak good things, it is better to say nothing at all that to speak evil.” Not only this, “we must not take pleasure in making known the faults of others, divulging confidential matters simply to expose them, nor may we take pleasure in making known others’ faults more widely than they deserve, and least of all in making up false stories and spreading things about people that they are completely innocent of.”

v12: God is the great lawgiver and judge. “It is enough that we have the law of God, which is a rule for us all,” and is sufficient. Let us take care that we do not “set up our own particular ideas and opinions as rules for everyone around us,” and then criticise and condemn our brothers and sisters in Christ, when they fail to keep them.