James 2:1-17

Christian Standard Bible

The Sin of Favoritism

2 My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.^{(A) 2} For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in, ³ if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,” ⁴ haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world^(B) to be rich in faith^(C) and heirs^(D) of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ Yet you have dishonored the poor.^(E) Don’t the rich oppress you and drag^(F) you into court? ⁷ Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you?^(G)

⁸ Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself,^[a](H) you are doing well. ⁹ If, however, you show favoritism,^(I) you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.^{(J) 11} For he who said, Do not commit adultery,^[b] also said, Do not murder.^[c](K) So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.

¹² Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.^{(L) 13} For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy.^(M) Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Faith and Works

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?

¹⁵ If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?^{(N) 17} In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.