εἰ δὲ ζῆλον πικρὸν ἔχετε καὶ ἐριθείαν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ ὑμῶν, μὴ κατακαυχᾶσθε καὶ ψεύδεσθε κατὰ τῆς ἀληθείας.
14But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be arrogant and lie about the truth.
The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is usually translated in English as “truth” is translated in Luchazi with vusunga: “the quality of being straight” (source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. ), in Obolo as atikọ or “good/correct talk” (source: Enene Enene), and in Ekari as maakodo bokouto or “enormous truth” (esp. in John 14:6 and 17; bokouto — “enormous” — is being used as an attribute for abstract nouns to denote that they are of God [see also here]; source: Marion Doble in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 37ff. ).
“Our Malay Committee also concluded that ‘truth’ as used in the Gospel of John was used either of God himself, or of God’s revelation of himself, or in an extended sense as a reference to those who had responded to God’s self-disclosure. In John 8:32 the New Malay translation reads ‘You will know the truth about God, and the truth about God will make you free.’ In John 8:44 this meaning is brought out by translating, ‘He has never been on the side of God, because there is no truth in him.’ Accordingly Jesus ‘tells the truth about God’ in 8:45, 46 (see also 16:7 and 8:37a). Then, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ becomes ‘I am the one who leads men to God, the one who reveals who and what God is, and the one who gives men life.” At 3:21 the translation reads ” … whoever obeys the truth, that is God himself, comes to the light …’; 16:13a appears as ‘he will lead you into the full truth about God’; and in 18:37 Jesus affirms ‘I came into the world to reveal the truth about God, and whoever obeys God listens to me.’ On this basis also 1:14 was translated ‘we saw his glory, the glory which he had as the Father’s only Son. Through him God has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace)’; and 1:17 appears as ‘God gave the law through Moses; but through Jesus Christ he has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace).'” (Source: Barclay Newman in The Bible Translator 1974, p. 432ff. )
Helen Evans (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) tells of the translation into Kui which usually is “true-thing.” In some instances however, such as in the second part of John 17:17 (“your word is truth” in English), the use of “true-thing” indicated that there might be other occasions when it’s not true, so here the translation was a a form of “pure, holy.”
Following are a number of back-translations of James 3:14:
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
James goes on to set up a contrast between a person who is meek and one who is jealous and ambitious, and he introduces the contrast by a pair of conjunctions, But and if.
The pair of terms in Greek for jealousy and selfish ambition appears in Paul’s lists of vices (translated “jealousy” and “selfishness” in 2 Cor 12.20; Gal 5.20). The word rendered jealousy, literally “zeal,” was originally a neutral term. But the predominant meaning in the New Testament is the negative sense of a desire to promote your own opinion from a selfish motive. It is a zeal that is fanatical (Barclay), and therefore may be rendered as “envy” (Translator’s New Testament, New International Version, New Revised Standard Version). James qualifies jealousy with the adjective bitter, thus intensifying the feeling of a contentious spirit, in contrast to humility and gentleness. Bitter in this context means “biting,” “intense,” or “severe.” Some other ways to express bitter jealousy are: “a heart full of intense jealousy,” “have a heart hot with jealousy,” or “have an inordinate desire to get what other people have.” Selfish ambition, one word in Greek, is a rare word sometimes used of the attitude of greedy politicians putting their own interests above everything else, often resulting in rivalry and partisan spirit. It may therefore be rendered as “spirit of rivalry” (Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Bible en français courant, Revised English Bible). We may also express it as “desire to be better than others.” In some languages this is described idiomatically in terms of the heart; for example, “have a black heart,” or “have a narrow heart.” As James sees it, the problem of jealousy and rivalry is not external, it is in your hearts, the inner feelings a person may have that are not publicly known. For the meaning of hearts see the discussion in 1.26.
In spite of the fact that the verse begins with the conditional clause But if you have …, the prohibition do not boast remains valid, whether or not the condition is realized. In other words boasting and lying are wrong and should be prohibited, whether they spring from jealousy and ambition or not.
Do not boast and be false to the truth: the meaning of this prohibition is not very clear. To boast is to praise oneself, especially in comparison with someone or something else, thus to have “pride” (Goodspeed) or to “brag” (Contemporary English Version). But what is the object of bragging? There are a number of possibilities.
(1) The first possibility is to take the verb boast absolutely without any object, referring to a person’s attitude and disposition. In this case the negative not goes with both verbs, and a comma or period is usually placed after the verb boast to separate the two clauses (so Japanese colloquial version), making boasting and lying two actions. This is seen in the renderings like “glory not, and lie not against the truth” (King James Version), and “do not be boastful, nor lie against the truth” (so CUV, Japanese New Interconfessional Translation). The boasting is sometimes understood in relation to others (for example, “you must not treat others with arrogant conceit” [Barclay]), and sometimes in relation to yourself (thus “do not make false claims for yourselves” [Translator’s New Testament]).
(2) Another possibility is to take the truth as the object. In this case the truth is understood to be the object of both verbs, to boast and to be false to. This would probably be the assumed meaning for ordinary readers who follow a literal rendering like that of the Revised Standard Version. In this case what James is saying appears to be “Do not be boastful about the truth or lie against it.” Contemporary English Version expresses this as “Don’t brag or lie to cover up the truth.”
(3) Still another possibility is to take the truth as the object, but to interpret do not boast and be false to the truth as a hendiadys, that is to take boasting and lying to be one idea or event. This is reflected in a rendering like “stop making false claims in defiance of the truth” (Revised English Bible).
(4) One more possibility is to take wisdom in verse 13 as the object of boasting. This is seen in renderings like “do not boast about it or deny the truth” (New International Version), and “do not pride yourselves on it and thus belie the truth” (Goodspeed). The pronoun “it” in both cases most likely refers back to “wisdom.” What James is saying here, then, would be that unjustifiable boasting about wisdom will result in denying or lying against the truth.
(5) A final possibility is to identify “wisdom” as the object of the verb “to boast” and to take the boasting of wisdom as the means of lying against the truth. This interpretation is seen in the Good News Translation rendering, “don’t sin against the truth by boasting of your wisdom.” Boasting about wisdom while being jealous and ambitious is, in fact, lying or sinning against the truth. This interpretation appears to fit the context best, and in fact makes the best sense, and is therefore the option recommended by this Handbook.
The expression be false to the truth appears redundant to some people if the truth is understood as “truthfulness.” For this reason some scholars suggest that the truth should be taken in the objective sense of “the truth revealed through Christ,” namely the gospel, or the Christian faith. It is also possible, however, to take it as referring to that which is true and real as against that which is false and unreal. James’ thinking then is this: “True wisdom is associated with humility. This is the truth. If so, to boast about wisdom when you are jealous and ambitious is a contradiction in terms; it cannot be true.” This is supported by what James goes on to say in the next verse.
The following alternative translation for verses 13 and 14 will bring this meaning out clearly:
• Are any of you truly wise? If you are, you must show it by living a right life and by being humble and wise in everything you do. This is true wisdom. But if you have a heart full of jealousy and a desire to be better than other people, you must not boast that you are a wise person [or, have spiritual understanding]. If you do that you turn what is true into a lie.
Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Paragraph 3:14–16
In 3:14–16, James discussed false wisdom. People who have envy and personal ambition show that the wisdom that they claim to have is false. It does not come from God.
3:14a–b
if you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts: This clause begins with the word if. But James was assuming that some of his readers did have bitter envy and selfish ambition. In some languages, it may be best not to translate this as an “if” sentence. It may be better to say:
Some of you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts.
From the context, it seems that James was still addressing men who wanted to be recognized as teachers in the church. No doubt there was more than one teacher, and they were competing with one another. Every teacher and his supporters thought that their way was correct. They were dedicated to their way so much that they argued bitterly and fiercely with their opponents.
3:14a
But: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as But introduces a contrast with 3:13c. The “bitter envy and selfish ambition” that James saw in people are in contrast to the “humility” (3:13c) that he wanted to see.
you harbor: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as harbor is literally “have” (as in the Revised Standard Version). Some other ways to translate this word are:
you have (NET Bible)
-or-
you are (New Century Version)
bitter jealousy: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as bitter is often used to describe water that is not drinkable because of its bad taste (as it was used in 3:11). It is used figuratively here to refer to an attitude that is harsh, unpleasant, and resentful.
The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as jealousy also means “envy.” It is intense, negative feelings when someone else succeeds in ways that you have not succeeded.
Some other ways to translate this phrase are:
bitter envy (New International Version (2011 Revision))
-or-
severe envy
-or-
very jealous
-or-
extremely unhappy when others succeed
3:14b
and selfish ambition: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as selfish ambition can also be translated as “selfishness” (as in the NET Bible). It refers to the attitude of someone who works to advance his own interests even if it harms or offends others.
Some other ways to translate this word are:
self-centered ambition (God’s Word)
-or-
selfishness (NET Bible)
-or-
and you want only you yourself to be dominant
-or-
and you only think about yourself
-or-
want to succeed more than others are succeeding
In this verse, James seems to have been warning teachers not to seek to increase the number of people in the church who supported them. He was also warning their groups of supporters not to promote their own teacher and try to destroy the reputation of the other teachers.
This same word occurs in Philippians 2:3–4.
in your hearts: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as hearts refers to the part of a person where his thoughts and feelings come from. Some languages refer to this part of a person as the liver or stomach. In other languages, it may be most natural to omit this phrase altogether and leave the meaning implicit. For example:
if you are bitterly jealous and selfish
Or you may translate it in another way that refers to someone’s inward thoughts and attitudes. For example:
if you have bitter jealousy and selfishness inside yourself
-or-
if you are bitterly jealous and filled with self-centered ambition (God’s Word)
3:14c
do not boast in it: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as do not boast in it is literally “do not boast” (as in the Revised Standard Version). Most scholars agree that the boast is a claim to be wise. You may want to make this clear in your translation. For example:
do not boast of your wisdom (Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)
-or-
don’t brag about being wise (New Living Translation, 1996 edition)
boast: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as boast here means to brag or say good things about oneself. James was telling his readers not to make confident or arrogant claims that they were wise.
3:14d
or deny the truth: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as deny the truth is literally “do not lie against the truth.” There are several ways to interpret this clause. The two most common ways are: (There is a third view: the truth which is contradicted is the truth that true wisdom is accompanied by meekness. When someone claims to be wise but is full of selfishness and jealousy, his life contradicts this truth. (See Martin, pages 130–131; Moo (2000), page 172; Laws, page 160–161.))
(1) The word truth refers to the truth regarding the boast that they are wise. According to this interpretation, those who boasted that they were wise were not telling the truth. They were lying. (Huther, page 167; Mayor, page 123; Mitton, page 137; Davids (1982), page 151.) For example:
14cDon’t say that you are wise 14dwhen it isn’t true. (God’s Word)
(God’s Word, New Living Translation, 1996 edition; possibly Revised English Bible, New Living Translation (2004 Revision), Contemporary English Version, New Century Version (These last four versions which speak about hiding, covering up, or defying the truth may mean “do not cover up the truth that you are really full of jealousy and selfish ambition and so cannot have true wisdom.”))
(2) The word truth refers to the truth that is found in the gospel or God’s word. (Or it may refer more specifically to the truth about what wisdom really is like.) According to this interpretation, those who boasted that they were wise “denied, contradicted, or hid from others” the truth of the gospel by the way they lived. They prevented or hindered people from knowing what real truth was.
Many English translations are ambiguous, and it is not possible to tell which interpretation they follow. It is recommended that you follow interpretation (1).
Some other ways to translate this clause are:
This is a lie.
-or-
Do not lie like that.
-or-
You are lying. It’s not true.
-or-
when what you do contradicts the truth
© 2012 by SIL International®
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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.
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