Here's my translation for James 3.1-12, which we're going over on Friday in our home group Bible study. It reads rough in some spots but that is because I largely keep the phrase and clause order from the Greek intact.

¹ Not many of you should become teachers my brothers, knowing that we who teach will receive a greater judgment. ² For greatly we all stumble. If anyone does not stumble in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle even the whole of his body. ³ But if horses' bits of bridle we put into their mouths, for them to obey us, we steer even the whole of their bodies. ⁴ And behold, great ships being driven by strong winds are steered by a very small rudder wherever the impulse of the steersman guides. ⁵ In the same way the tongue is a small part, but it boasts greatly.

Behold, how a small fire ignites such a large forest! ⁶ The tongue is a fire: the world of the unjust. The tongue is put in charge of our parts, defiling the whole body; setting ablaze the wheel of being* and set ablaze by Gehenna. ⁷ For every kind—beast and bird, snake and sea creature—is tameable and has been tamed by human-kind. ⁸ But the tongue no human can possibly tame; (the tongue is) a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father and with it we curse humans—the same humans made in the image of God. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. Not ever, my brothers, are these things to be! ¹¹ Does a spring from the same source pour forth both fresh (water) and salt (water)? ¹² Is it possible, my brothers, for a fig tree to produce olives? Or a grapevine (to produce) figs? Neither can salt produce fresh water.

* "wheel of being" ==> idiom for "course of life" or "way of life".