James 3:5-8

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

⁵ So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!

⁶ And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature,^[a] and set on fire by hell.^{[b] 7} For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.