Him that privily talked against his neighbor did I drive away from me. Psalm 100:5

Empty talk is, the door to criticism and slander, the spreader of false rumours and opinions, the sower of discord and strife. .“Unseen Warfare”

Slander is, an offspring of hatred, a subtle yet coarse disease, a leech lurking unfelt, wasting and draining the blood of love. It is, simulation of love, the patron of a heavy and unclean heart, the ruin of chastity. …St. John Climacus

Wherefore, not those that are slandered, but the slanderers, have need to be anxious, and to tremble, for the former are not constrained to answer for themselves, touching the evil things which are said of them, but the latter will have to answer for the evil they have spoken, and over these impends the whole danger …. St. John Chrysostom