My brothers, what good is there in a man's saying that he has faith, if he has no good deeds to prove it? Such faith cannot save him, can it?

For we all make many a slip. If anyone never slips in speech, he is a man of maturity; he can control his whole body too.

If we put bridles into horses' mouths to make them obey us, we can guide their whole bodies, too.

So the tongue, too, is a little organ but can boast of great achievements. See how a spark, ever so tiny, can set a vast forest on fire!

For every kind of beasts and birds, of reptiles and sea animals, can be, or have been, tamed by man;

but the tongue no human being can tame. It is an evil incapable of being quieted, full of deadly poison.

A fountain cannot pour from the same opening fresh and brackish water, can it?

A fig tree, my brothers, cannot bear olives, or a grape-vine figs, can it? And a salt spring cannot furnish fresh water.