James 3:10

Plain English Version

Both good things and bad things come out of our mouths. But, my Christian friends, that’s not right.

Cross References

Genesis 20:9

Then Abimelek sent somebody to get Abraham, and Abraham came to that meeting. Abimelek said to Abraham, “Look, you have made trouble for me and my people. What did I do to you, so that you paid me back with this trouble? You have done a bad thing to us.

Romans 12:14

If anyone makes trouble for you, don’t ask God to punish them, but ask him to help them.

1 Corinthians 3:3

Even though you are Christians you still don’t live like Christians. You still let your old human spirits control you. You want things that other people have. And you argue with each other. That shows that you are letting your human spirits control you, not the Holy Spirit. You are still like people that don’t know God.

1 Timothy 5:13

Even if she doesn’t marry again, she still might get lazy. Instead of doing good things, she might just go around to people’s houses and talk to them about other people, and she might talk about things that she shouldn’t talk about.

James 1:16

Don’t let anybody trick you, my Christian friends.

James 1:19

Listen, my Christian friends, you have to be ready to listen to other people, and you have to stop and think before you say anything yourself. Stop and think before you get angry.

James 3:1

My Christian friends, don’t all of you try to be teachers of God’s word. Only the right people can do that. You see, God will judge us all, and if you teach people something that is wrong, God might punish you a lot. It is like this, all of us make mistakes, and we get trouble from those mistakes. But if we teach people, and if we make a mistake so that we teach them something that is wrong, we will get really big trouble from that. It is hard for us to control our tongues so that we say everything properly. If you can control your tongue, you are properly good, and you can control all of your body.

James 3:11

Do you ever find fresh water and salt water coming from the same water-hole? No, it is never like that. And you never find 2 sorts of fruit on one tree. So our mouths shouldn’t say 2 sorts of things. We shouldn’t say good things and bad things with the same mouth.

James 3:9

Sometimes we use our tongue to tell God that he is our good father, and sometimes we use it to swear at people. But remember, God made people to be like himself.

1 Peter 3:9

If somebody rubbishes you, don’t rubbish them back. If somebody does wrong to you, don’t do payback to them. Instead of that, you have to ask God to be good to them. God picked you to be in his family and to live like that. And if you are good to people like that, God will be good to you too.