The third line reaches the mud, ground already softened by the water above, and the line text changes register from mild criticism to real caution. This is the closest position in the lower trigram to the danger that Kan represents, and the classical image draws the practical consequence directly: carelessness here can draw on an attacking enemy, since the mud is nearly the crossing itself.
Every translation of Hexagram 5 keeps this location as the point where the hexagram's patience is hardest to maintain, because the difficulty is no longer distant or merely social, it is immediate and physical. The line does not counsel retreat, since retreat belongs to the line above it, inside the danger; it counsels the sharpest form of the discipline the whole hexagram teaches, watchfulness maintained right up against the thing being waited for, without the relief of either safe distance or the crossing itself yet being reached. Read alongside line one's ease and line two's mild talk, line three marks the hinge of the lower trigram, the last position before the hexagram's structure itself changes, and its caution is proportional: the nearer the water, the less margin for a lapse in attention.