Psalms 7:14

7:14 See the one who is pregnant with wickedness,

who conceives destructive plans,

and gives birth to harmful lies – ¹ 

Psalms 140:9

140:9 As for the heads of those who surround me –

may the harm done by ²  their lips overwhelm them!

Job 15:35

15:35 They conceive ³  trouble and bring forth evil;

their belly ⁴  prepares deception.”

Matthew 12:34

12:34 Offspring of vipers! How are you able to say anything good, since you are evil? For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart.

James 3:6-8

3:6 And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents ⁵  the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It ⁶  pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell. ⁷ 

3:7 For every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and sea creature ⁸  is subdued and has been subdued by humankind. ⁹  3:8 But no human being can subdue the tongue; it is a restless ¹⁰  evil, full of deadly poison.

¹ tn Heb “and he conceives harm and gives birth to a lie.”

² tn Heb “harm of their lips.” The genitive here indicates the source or agent of the harm.

³ tn Infinitives absolute are used in this verse in the place of finite verbs. They lend a greater vividness to the description, stressing the basic meaning of the words.

⁴ tn At the start of the speech Eliphaz said Job’s belly was filled with the wind; now it is there that he prepares deception. This inclusio frames the speech.

⁵ tn Grk “makes itself,” “is made.”

⁶ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

⁷ sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36).

⁸ tn Grk (plurals), “every kind of animals and birds, of reptiles and sea creatures.”

⁹ tn Grk “the human species.”

¹⁰ tc Most mss (C Ψ 1739^c Ï as well as a few versions and fathers) read “uncontrollable” (ἀκατασχετόν, akatasceton), while the most important witnesses (א A B K P 1739* latt) have “restless” (ἀκατάστατον, akatastaton). Externally, the latter reading should be preferred. Internally, however, things get a bit more complex. The notion of being uncontrollable is well suited to the context, especially as a counterbalance to v. 8a, though for this very reason scribes may have been tempted to replace ἀκατάστατον with ἀκατασχετόν. However, in a semantically parallel early Christian text, ἀκατάστατος (akatastato") was considered strong enough of a term to denounce slander as “a restless demon” (Herm. 27:3). On the other hand, ἀκατάστατον may have been substituted for ἀκατασχετόν by way of assimilation to 1:8 (especially since both words were relatively rare, scribes may have replaced the less familiar with one that was already used in this letter). On internal evidence, it is difficult to decide, though ἀκατασχετόν is slightly preferred. However, in light of the strong support for ἀκατάστατον, and the less-than-decisive internal evidence, ἀκατάστατον is preferred instead.