²³ You who boast in the law,^(A) do you dishonor God by breaking the law? ²⁴ As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”^[a](B)

²⁵ Circumcision has value if you observe the law,^(C) but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.^(D)

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a];^(A) and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]”^(B)

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”^(C)

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself,^(D) so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray,^(A) one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself^(B) and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast^(C) twice a week and give a tenth^(D) of all I get.’

¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast^(E) and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’^(F)

¹⁴ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”^(G)

⁴⁵ “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses,^(A) on whom your hopes are set.^{(B) 46} If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.^{(C) 47} But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”^(D)

²³ for all have sinned^(A) and fall short of the glory of God,

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.^{(A) 23} Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom,^(B) and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.^(C)

²⁶ Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues^(D) deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. ²⁷ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after^(E) orphans and widows^(F) in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.^(G)

¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.^{(A) 17} If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.^(B)