James 1:23

1:23 For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone ¹  who gazes at his own face ²  in a mirror.

James 3:6

3:6 And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents ³  the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It ⁴  pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell. ⁵ 

[1:23]  ¹ tn The word for “man” or “individual” is ἀνήρ (anhr), which often means “male” or “man (as opposed to woman).” However, as BDAG 79 s.v. 2 says, here it is “equivalent to τὶς someone, a person.”

[1:23]  ² tn Grk “the face of his beginning [or origin].”

[3:6]  ³ tn Grk “makes itself,” “is made.”

[3:6]  ⁴ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[3:6]  ⁵ 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).