James goes on to explain the evil of producing both good and bad talk at the same time by using three examples, all illustrations from nature. These are expressed in the form of two rhetorical questions, a favorite literary device used several times in this book. The answer expected to these questions is “No.”

Does a spring pour forth from the same opening fresh water and brackish?: spring, also rendered as “fountain” (so King James Version, Revised English Bible), obviously refers to a natural spring. The verb pour forth appears only here in the New Testament. Referring to a natural spring, the most appropriate meaning is “gush forth” (New American Bible) or “gush out” (Barclay). The word opening occurs elsewhere only in Heb 11.38, where it is rendered as “caves” by Revised Standard Version and “holes” by Good News Translation. It refers to the split in the rock that the water gushes out of. The expression fresh water and brackish is literally “sweet and bitter.” There is no need to speculate what kinds of water these two terms refer to. Most likely it simply represents an idiomatic expression referring to water that is fit for drinking and water that is not. The point James tries to make here is that the two are incompatible, and that they cannot come from the same source. Normally we expect that a spring will pour out only one kind of water, namely fresh water fit for drinking; likewise the tongue is created to utter only one type of speech, namely good speech that blesses God.

In languages where special words exist to refer to two types of water, that which is fit for drinking and that which is not, these words may be used in the translation; for example, “good … bad,” “fresh … salty.” Rhetorical questions expecting a strong negative answer can in some languages be expressed as positive statements, as Good News Translation has done. In arid areas or small islands where springs do not exist, translators will need to use a descriptive phrase; for example, “a place where water flows out of the ground [or, rock].” And this first sentence may be expressed as:
• No place where water flows out of the rock [or, ground] will have both fresh water and bitter [or, salty] water pouring out of the same opening.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .