1Not many become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a greater judgment.2For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in word, this one is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.3If we put bridles into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we also turn their whole body.4Look, ships also, though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, are turned by a very small rudder wherever the impulse of the one steering directs.5So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. Look, how great a fire sets ablaze how great a forest.6And the tongue is a fire, the world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body and setting on fire the course of origin, and it is set on fire by Gehenna.7For every nature of wild animals and of birds and of reptiles and of sea creatures is tamed and has been tamed by human nature.8But no one among humans is able to tame the tongue; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.9With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse humans made according to the likeness of God.10From the same mouth come praise and curse. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.11Surely a spring does not pour forth from the same opening the sweet and the bitter.12Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a vine produce figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh water.