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Tuesday, July 8th, 2025
the Week of Proper 9 / Ordinary 14
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Bishop's Bible

James 3:11

Doth a fountayne sende foorth at one place, sweete water, and bitter also?

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Righteousness;   Spring;   The Topic Concordance - Servants;   Speech/communication;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Fountains and Springs;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Blessing;   Tongue;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Word;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Balaam;   James, the General Epistle of;   Holman Bible Dictionary - James, the Letter;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Hosea;   James, Epistle of;   Law;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Bitterness ;   James ;   James Epistle of;   Metaphor;   Water ;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Bitter;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Bitter;   James, Epistle of;   Place;   Salt;   Well;   Wisdom;  

Devotionals:

- Daily Light on the Daily Path - Devotion for November 19;   Every Day Light - Devotion for May 12;  

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?
Easy-to-Read Version
Do good water and bad water flow from the same spring? Of course not.
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?
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 brethren, be not manie maisters, knowyng howe that we shall receaue the greater damnation: 2 For in many thynges we sinne all. If a man sinne not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle all the body. 3 Beholde, we put bittes in the horses mouthes, that they may obey vs, and we turne about all the body of them: 4 Beholde also ye shippes, which though they be so great, and are dryuen of fierce windes, yet are they turned about with a very small helme, whither soeuer the violence of the gouernour wyll. 5 Euen so the tongue is a litle member also, & boasteth great thynges. Beholde how great a matter a litle fire kindleth. 6 And the tongue is fyre, euen a worlde of wickednesse. So is the tongue set among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fyre the course of nature, & it is set on fyre of hell. 7 All the natures of beastes, & of byrdes, and of serpentes, and thynges of the sea, are meeked and tamed of the nature of man: 8 But the tongue can no man tame, it is an vnruly euyll, full of deadly poyson. 9 Therwith blesse we God the father: and therwith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. 10 Out of one mouth proceadeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these thynges ought not so to be.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

place: or, hole, James 3:11

Cross-References

Genesis 4:10
And he sayde: What hast thou done? the voyce of thy brothers blood cryeth vnto me out of the grounde.
Psalms 50:21
These thynges hast thou done and I helde my tongue, thou thoughtest that I am euen such a one as thou thy selfe art: but I wyll reproue thee, and I wyll set foorth in order before thine eyes [all that thou hast done.]
Romans 3:20
Because that by the deedes of the lawe, there shall no flesshe be iustified in his syght. For by the lawe, commeth the knowledge of sinne.

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.


 
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