The theme of this verse is that truth goes on and on but lies quickly fade away.

“Truthful lips endure for ever”: “Truthful lips” is literally “the lip of truth” in which “lip” again represents speech, whatever a person says. “Truth” is not merely the opposite of lies or untruths but rather the quality of reliability. People can depend on and trust what is spoken as being true. “Endure”, literally “establish,” means to be permanent, to go on, to last, or to continue. “For ever”, meaning “always,” contrasts with the short life of a lie or other deceit in line 2.

“But a lying tongue is but for a moment”: In Hebrew the final word of the first line rhymes with the first word of the second line. This line says literally “but only for the wink of an eye is a lying tongue.” The use of the figurative “wink of an eye” in this line serves to sharpen the contrast with “for ever” in line 1. For “lying tongue” refer to 6.17. One way of expressing this line is “lying talk stays for only a short time” or “. . . does not last long.”

Note that Good News Translation has reversed the order of the lines in this verse, placing the emphasis on the lasting quality of truth at the end of the saying. Before adopting this approach, translators should determine if the point of the saying is emphasized or lessened in this way in their language.

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .