Quick to Listen, Slow to Anger

¹⁹ Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger^[a]— ²⁰ for human anger doesn’t produce the righteousness of God. ²¹ So put away all moral filth and excess of evil and receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror— ²⁴ for once he looks at himself and goes away, he immediately forgets what sort of person he was. ²⁵ But the one who looks intently into the perfect Torah, the Torah that gives freedom, and continues in it, not becoming a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts—he shall be blessed in what he does.

²⁶ If anyone thinks he is religious and yet does not bridle his tongue^[b] but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is futile. ²⁷ Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress,^[c] and to keep oneself unstained by the world.