James 3:11

Murdock Translation

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

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 ?

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 Let there not be many teachers among you, my brethren; but know ye, that we are obnoxious to, a severer judgment. ² For we all offend in many things. Whoever offendeth not in discourse, is a perfect man, who can also keep his whole body in subjection. ³ Behold, we put bridles into the mouth of horses, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body. ⁴ Huge ships also, when strong winds drive them, are turned about by a small timber, to what place the pleasure of the pilot looketh. ⁵ So likewise the tongue is a small member, and it exalteth itself. Also a little fire inflameth large forests. ⁶ Now the tongue is a fire, and the world of sin is like a forest. And this tongue, which is one among our members, marreth our whole body; and it inflameth the series of our generations that roll on like a wheel; and it is itself on fire. ⁷ For all natures of beasts and birds and reptiles, of the sea or land, are subjugated by the nature of man. ⁸ But the tongue hath no one been able to tame: it is an evil thing, not coercible, and full of deadly poison. ⁹ For with it, we bless the Lord and Father; and with it we curse men, who were made in the image of God: ¹⁰ and from the same mouth, proceed curses and blessings. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

place: or, hole, James 3:11

Cross-References

Romans 3:20
Wherefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh is justified before him: for, by the law, sin is known.

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.