3:11–12

In 3:11–12, James supported his teaching with illustrations from nature. He showed how inconsistent it is for the same mouth to speak both good and bad words.

3:11

Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?: In Greek, this sentence is more literally, “Does a spring pour out both fresh and bitter water from the same hole?” Notice that the Berean Standard Bible has combined the words “spring” and “hole” into one expression.

This is a rhetorical question. James used this rhetorical question to emphasize that a spring certainly does not give two types of water from the same hole.

Some ways to translate this emphasis are:

• As a rhetorical question. For example:

Can clean water and dirty water both flow from the same spring? (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
A spring does not pour out fresh water and bitter water from the same opening, does it? (NET Bible)
-or-
Fresh water and salt water cannot both flow from the same spring, right?

• As a statement. For example:

No spring of water pours out sweet water and bitter water from the same opening. (Good News Translation)
-or-
Obviously good and bad water do not both flow from the same spring.

Translate this sentence in a way that is natural in your language for emphasizing well-known facts.

fresh water: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as fresh water describes water that tastes good. Some other ways to translate this word are:

good water
-or-
drinking water
-or-
clean water

Some English versions (Good News Translation, King James Version) translate this word as “sweet water.” But this does not mean that the water has been sweetened. It is an expression that means that the water is good to drink.

salt water: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as salt water describes water that tastes foul or bitter. It is water that is not good to drink.

This Greek word does not literally mean salt. Some English versions translate it as salt water:

(a) to contrast it with fresh water,

(b) because the word “salt” occurs in 3:12c where is it contrasted with fresh water, and

(c) because salt water is an example of water that is not good to drink.

Some other ways to translate this word are:

dirty/bad water
-or-
polluted water (God’s Word)
-or-
bitter water
-or-
brackish water (Revised English Bible)

spring: A spring is a source of water where the water flows out from a hole in the ground or rock. Some other ways to translate this word are:

water source
-or-
place where water springs/pours out
-or-
place in the ground where water comes/gushes out

In languages where springs are not known, the word spring can be translated as “a water well.”

© 2012 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.