1  Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive greater judgment. 2  For we all often offend. If any one offend not in word, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body too. 3  Behold, we put the bits in the mouths of the horses, that they may obey us, and we turn round their whole bodies. 4  Behold also the ships, which are so great, and driven by violent winds, are turned about by a very small rudder, wherever the pleasure of the helmsman will. 5  Thus also the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. See how little a fire, how large a wood it kindles! 6  and the tongue is fire, the world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set in our members, the defiler of the whole body, and which sets fire to the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. 7  For every species both of beasts and of birds, both of creeping things and of sea animals, is tamed and has been tamed by the human species; 8  but the tongue can no one among men tame; it is an unsettled evil, full of death-bringing poison.