James 3:6

And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents ¹  the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It ²  pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell. ³ 

biblegateway Jam 3:6

The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

biblegateway Jam 3:6

And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.

biblegateway Jam 3:6

And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness that can ruin your whole life. It can turn the entire course of your life into a blazing flame of destruction, for it is set on fire by hell itself.

biblegateway Jam 3:6

A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.

SABDAweb Jam 3:6

And the tongue is a fire; it is the power of evil placed in our bodies, making all the body unclean, putting the wheel of life on fire, and getting its fire from hell.

bibleoremus Jam 3:6

And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.

biblegateway Jam 3:6

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.

biblegateway Jam 3:6

And the tongue is a fire! The tongue represents ¹  the world of wrongdoing among the parts of our bodies. It ²  pollutes the entire body and sets fire to the course of human existence – and is set on fire by hell. ³ 

¹ tn Grk “makes itself,” “is made.”

² tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

³ 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).