James 3:11

Easy-to-Read Version

Do good water and bad water flow from the same spring? Of course not.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Does a spring pour out sweet and bitter water from the same opening?

King James Version (1611)
Doeth a fountaine send foorth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

King James Version
Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

English Standard Version
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?

New American Standard Bible
Does a spring send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?

New Century Version
Do good and bad water flow from the same spring?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?

Berean Standard Bible
Can both fresh water and bitter water flow from the same spring?

Contemporary English Version
Can clean water and dirty water both flow from the same spring?

Complete Jewish Bible
A spring doesn't send both fresh and bitter water from the same opening, does it?

Darby Translation
Does the fountain, out of the same opening, pour forth sweet and bitter?

Geneva Bible (1587)
Doeth a fountaine send forth at one place sweete water and bitter?

George Lamsa Translation
Can there spring forth from the same fountain, both sweet water and bitter water?

Good News Translation
No spring of water pours out sweet water and bitter water from the same opening.

Lexham English Bible
A spring does not pour forth from the same opening fresh and bitter water, does it?

Literal Translation
Does the fountain out of the same hole send forth the sweet and the bitter?

Amplified Bible
Does a spring send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?

American Standard Version
Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?

Bible in Basic English
Does the fountain send from the same outlet sweet and bitter water?

Hebrew Names Version
Does a spring send forth from the same opening fresh and bitter water?

International Standard Version
A spring cannot pour both fresh and brackish water from the same opening, can it?

Etheridge Translation
Can it be that one fountain shall send forth waters sweet and bitter ?

Murdock Translation
Can there flow from the same fountain, sweet waters and bitter?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Doth a fountayne sende foorth at one place, sweete water, and bitter also?

English Revised Version
Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?

World English Bible
Does a spring send forth from the same opening fresh and bitter water?

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Doth a fountain send out of the same place sweet water and bitter?

Weymouth's New Testament
In a fountain, are fresh water and bitter sent forth from the same opening?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whether a welle of the same hoole bringith forth swete and salt watir?

Update Bible Version
Does the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet [water] and bitter?

Webster's Bible Translation
Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet [water] and bitter?

New English Translation
A spring does not pour out fresh water and bitter water from the same opening, does it?

New King James Version
Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?

New Living Translation
Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water?

New Life Bible
Does a well of water give good water and bad water from the same place?

New Revised Standard
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Doth, the fountain, out of the same opening, teem forth the sweet and the bitter?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Doth a fountain send forth, out of the same hole, sweet and bitter water?

Revised Standard Version
Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish?

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Doth a fountayne sende forth at one place swete water and bytter also?

Young's Literal Translation
doth the fountain out of the same opening pour forth the sweet and the bitter?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Doth a fountayne sende forth at one place swete water and bytter also?

Mace New Testament (1729)
does a fountain throw up salt water and fresh, by the same conveyance?

THE MESSAGE
When You Open Your Mouth Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. 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. This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can't tame a tongue—it's never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can't go on. A spring doesn't gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don't bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don't bear apples, do they? You're not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you? Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom—it's animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others' throats. Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.

Simplified Cowboy Version
A windmill don't pump good water one minute and sewer water the next, does it?

Contextual Overview

¹ My brothers and sisters, not many of you should be teachers. I say this because, as you know, we who teach will be judged more strictly than others. ² We all make many mistakes. A person who never said anything wrong would be perfect. Someone like that would be able to control their whole body too. ³ We put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us. With these bits we can control their whole body. ⁴ It is the same with ships. A ship is very big, and it is pushed by strong winds. But a very small rudder controls that big ship. And the one who controls the rudder decides where the ship will go. It goes where he wants it to go. ⁵ It is the same with our tongue. It is a small part of the body, but it can boast about doing great things. A big forest fire can be started with only a little flame. ⁶ The tongue is like a fire. It is a world of evil among the parts of our body. It spreads its evil through our whole body and starts a fire that influences all of life. It gets this fire from hell. ⁷ Humans have control over every kind of wild animal, bird, reptile, and fish, and they have controlled all these things. ⁸ But no one can control the tongue. It is wild and evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ We use our tongues to praise our Lord and Father, but then we curse people who were created in God's likeness. ¹⁰ These praises and curses come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, this should not happen.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

place: or, hole, James 3:11

Cross-References

Genesis 4:10
Then the Lord said, "What have you done? You killed your brother and the ground opened up to take his blood from your hands. Now his blood is shouting to me from the ground. So you will be cursed from this ground.

Psalms 50:21
When you did these things, I said nothing. So you thought that I was just like you. But I will not be quiet any longer. I will correct you and make clear what I have against you.

Romans 3:20
because no one can be made right with God by following the law. The law only shows us our sin.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place,.... "Or hole"; for at divers places, and at different times, as Pliny m observes, it may send forth

sweet [water] and bitter: and it is reported n, there is a lake with the Trogloditae, a people in Ethiopia, which becomes thrice a day bitter, and then as often sweet; but then it does not yield sweet water and bitter at the same time: this simile is used to show how unnatural it is that blessing and cursing should proceed out of the same mouth.

m Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 103. n Isodor. Hispal. Originum, l. 13. c. 13. p. 115.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Doth a fountain send forth at the same place - Margin, “hole.” The Greek word means “opening, fissure,” such as there is in the earth, or in rocks from which a fountain gushes.

Sweet water and bitter - Fresh water and salt, James 3:12. Such things do not occur in the works of nature, and they should not be found in man.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 11. Doth a fountain send forth - sweet water and bitter? — In many things nature is a sure guide to man; but no such inconsistency is found in the natural world as this blessing and cursing in man. No fountain, at the same opening, sends forth sweet water and bitter; no fig tree can bear olive berries; no vine can bear figs; nor can the sea produce salt water and fresh from the same place. These are all contradictions, and indeed impossibilities, in nature. And it is depraved man alone that can act the monstrous part already referred to.