Read Proverbs 13:3  Do you remember what the word keep meant in Proverbs?  The word keep is a military term and means to guard.  So our verse says that if you guard your mouth, you are guarding your life.  Our verse goes on to say that if we are careless and just say the first thing that pops into our head, we will get into trouble.  Just like the scorner that we talked about yesterday, if we say hurtful words, we are destroying friendships.  Someone may be fat or messy or late, but if we say those things out loud, we are hurting our friend.  And soon they may no longer be our friend.  We may carelessly say, “Didn’t you wear that dress last week?”  It may be that our friend doesn’t have very many dresses to wear and what we said will be embarrassing to them.  While it is true that we can’t avoid every problem, we can avoid many problems if we just watch what we say before we say it.  We need to guard our lips.  We need to keep our mouth.