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lolI still feel sad for you Visbek because even using that quote you do not understand what was behind it. Good evening to you.
Sorry, wrong, I'm not missing some critical context. Jesus told people not to judge others -- and not to be hypocrites. I'd say that using gossip to criticize gossip... yeah, that is a tad hypocritical.
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. 2 For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s[a] eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
And no, contrary to your claim, that passage says nothing about "gossip" (the conveyance of intimate or chatty information).
Ironically, you plucked a series of statements out of context to try to make the case that "gossip" is barred by the Bible -- a sentiment that probably doesn't make much sense when we put your own phrases into *cough* a fuller context, as well as exercising extreme caution in translation.
For example, 1 Romans uses the Greek term "psithuristes" ("a whisperer, secret slanderer, detractor") in a passage where Paul was heaping insults on non-believers. (The passage, if taken as literally as you suggest, also implies that gossips should be executed: "They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die.")
Leviticus was written in a completely different language; translators aren't even sure of the true meaning of the term they translate as "slanderer." The passage also includes critical injunctions such as "don't eat fruit from a new region for 5 years" and "you shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard" (no longer practiced, not sure why) and "no tattoos" and "when an alien resides in your land, you shall not oppress the alien" (seems like a bunch of people forgot that one...)
Proverbs 11:16 is about keeping confidences, not talking smack about your neighbors.
1 Timothy 5's injunctions against gossips was actually targeted to widows under 60, who apparently ought to be married off quickly to prevent them from being gossipy busybodies... quite a far cry from Paul mixing gossips in with murders and "inventors of evil." It then goes on to say "never accept any accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses" (so much for you accusing Auntie of being an evil gossip), and finishes with a flourish: Drink wine instead of water, so you don't get sick. Useful moral advice right there.
Oh, and then in 1 Timothy 6: "Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed." I guess someone wasn't exactly forward thinking in their ethics.
Got any more glib injunctions based on sentences taken out of context from the Tanakh or New Testament...?