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Also a ship is very big, and it is pushed by ·strong [fierce] winds. But a very small rudder ·controls [guides; steers] that big ship, making it go wherever the pilot wants. It is the same with the tongue. It is a small ·part [member] of the body, but it ·brags [boasts] about great things.

A big forest fire can be started with only a little flame. And the tongue is like a fire. It is a whole world of ·evil [iniquity; unrighteousness] among ·the parts of our bodies [L our members]. The tongue ·spreads its evil through [pollutes; stains; corrupts] the whole body. The tongue is set on fire by hell [L Gehenna; C a valley outside of Jerusalem where in the OT period children were sacrificed to a pagan god; later used as a burning trash heap; a metaphor for hell], and it starts a fire that influences ·all of life [L the wheel of birth/life].

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