1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we shall receive greater judgment.
2 For we all stumble in much. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the entire body.
3 Look, we put bits in the mouths of horses, for them to obey us, and we turn their body.
4 Look at the ships too: although they are so big and are driven by strong winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot intends.
5 So too the tongue is a little member, yet boasts greatly. See how a little fire kindles a great forest!
6 And the tongue is a fire, the world of unrighteousness. Like a forest among our members the tongue is placed, the one defiling the entire body, and lighting on fire the course of generations, rolling from the beginning and in the end is lit on fire itself.
7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind.
8 But no man is able to tame the tongue. It is unruly, evil, filled with deadly poison.
9 With it we baraḵ our Elohim and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of Elohim.
10 Out of the same mouth proceed beraḵah and cursing. My brothers, this should not be so.
11 Does the fountain send forth the sweet and the bitter from the same opening?
12 My brothers, is a fig tree able to bear olives, or a grapevine figs? So neither is a fountain to make salt and sweet water.
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good behaviour his works in meekness of wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter jealousy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast against and lie against the truth.
15 This is not the wisdom coming down from above, but it is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.
16 For where jealousy and self-seeking are, there is confusion and every foul deed.
17 But the wisdom from above is first clean, then peaceable, gentle, ready to obey, filled with compassion and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.