¹⁸ Dear children,^(A) let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.^(B)

Faith and Deeds

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?^(A) Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.^{(B) 16} If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?^{(C) 17} In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.^(D)

²⁰ First to those in Damascus,^(A) then to those in Jerusalem^(B) and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles,^(C) I preached that they should repent^(D) and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.^(E)

¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.^(A)

5 “‘If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify^(A) regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.^(B)

²⁴ “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵ So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

²⁶ “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? ²⁷ Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

²⁸ “‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. ²⁹ For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.^{(A) 30} And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’^(B)

¹⁵ Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor^(A) and are counting on it.^(B) Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.^(C)

²³ As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray^(A) for you. And I will teach^(B) you the way that is good and right.