2 My brethren, pay no servile regard to people [show no prejudice, no partiality]. Do not [attempt to] hold and practice the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ [the Lord] of glory [together with snobbery]!

² For if a person comes into your congregation whose hands are adorned with gold rings and who is wearing splendid apparel, and also a poor [man] in shabby clothes comes in,

³ And you pay special attention to the one who wears the splendid clothes and say to him, Sit here in this preferable seat! while you tell the poor [man], Stand there! or, Sit there on the floor at my feet!

⁴ Are you not discriminating among your own and becoming critics and judges with wrong motives?

⁵ Listen, my beloved brethren: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and in their position as believers and to inherit the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him?

⁶ But you [in contrast] have insulted (humiliated, dishonored, and shown your contempt for) the poor. Is it not the rich who domineer over you? Is it not they who drag you into the law courts?

⁷ Is it not they who slander and blaspheme that precious name by which you are distinguished and called [the name of Christ invoked in baptism]?

⁸ If indeed you [really] fulfill the royal Law in accordance with the Scripture, You shall love your neighbor as [you love] yourself, you do well.^(A)

⁹ But if you show servile regard (prejudice, favoritism) for people, you commit sin and are rebuked and convicted by the Law as violators and offenders.

¹⁰ For whosoever keeps the Law [as a] whole but stumbles and offends in one [single instance] has become guilty of [breaking] all of it.

¹¹ For He Who said, You shall not commit adultery, also said, You shall not kill. If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become guilty of transgressing the [whole] Law.^(B)

¹² So speak and so act as [people should] who are to be judged under the law of liberty [the moral instruction given by Christ, especially about love].

¹³ For to him who has shown no mercy the judgment [will be] merciless, but mercy [full of glad confidence] exults victoriously over judgment.

¹⁴ What is the use (profit), my brethren, for anyone to profess to have faith if he has no [good] works [to show for it]? Can [such] faith save [his soul]?

¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clad and lacks food for each day,

¹⁶ And one of you says to him, Good-bye! Keep [yourself] warm and well fed, without giving him the necessities for the body, what good does that do?

¹⁷ So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead).

¹⁸ But someone will say [to you then], You [say you] have faith, and I have [good] works. Now you show me your [alleged] faith apart from any [good] works [if you can], and I by [good] works [of obedience] will show you my faith.

¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. So do the demons believe and shudder [in terror and horror such as ^[a]make a man’s hair stand on end and contract the surface of his skin]!

²⁰ Are you willing to be shown [proof], you foolish (unproductive, spiritually deficient) fellow, that faith apart from [good] works is inactive and ineffective and worthless?

²¹ Was not our forefather Abraham [shown to be] justified (made acceptable to God) by [his] works when he brought to the altar as an offering his [own] son Isaac?^(C)

²² You see that [his] faith was cooperating with his works, and [his] faith was completed and reached its supreme expression [when he implemented it] by [good] works.

²³ And [so] the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed in (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on) God, and this was accounted to him as righteousness (as conformity to God’s will in thought and deed), and he was called God’s friend.^(D)

²⁴ You see that a man is justified (pronounced righteous before God) through what he does and not alone through faith [through works of obedience as well as by what he believes].

²⁵ So also with Rahab the harlot—was she not shown to be justified (pronounced righteous before God) by [good] deeds when she took in the scouts (spies) and sent them away by a different route?^(E)

²⁶ For as the human body apart from the spirit is lifeless, so faith apart from [its] works of obedience is also dead.

28 The word of the Lord came again to me, saying,

² Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is lifted up and you have said and thought, I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas; yet you are only man [weak, feeble, made of earth] and not God, though you imagine yourself to be almost more than mortal with your mind as the mind of God;

³ Indeed, you are [imagining yourself] wiser than Daniel; there is no secret [you think] that is hidden from you;

⁴ With your own wisdom and with your own understanding you have gotten you riches and power and have brought gold and silver into your treasuries;

⁵ By your great wisdom and by your traffic you have increased your riches and power, and your heart is proud and lifted up because of your wealth;

⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have imagined your mind as the mind of God [having thoughts and purposes suitable only to God Himself],^(A)

⁷ Behold therefore, I am bringing strangers upon you, the most terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom [O Tyre], and they shall defile your splendor.

⁸ They shall bring you down to the pit [of destruction] and you shall die the [many] deaths of all the Tyrians that are slain in the heart of the seas.

⁹ Will you still say, I am a god, before him who slays you? But you are only a man [made of earth] and no god in the hand of him who wounds and profanes you.

¹⁰ You shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers, for I have spoken it, says the Lord God.

¹¹ Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

¹² Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him, Thus says the Lord God: You are the full measure and pattern of exactness [giving the finishing touch to all that constitutes completeness], full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

¹³ You were in ^[a]Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the carnelian, topaz, jasper, chrysolite, beryl, onyx, sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald; and your settings and your sockets and engravings were wrought in gold. On the day that you were created they were prepared.^(B)

¹⁴ You were the anointed cherub that covers with overshadowing [wings], and I set you so. You were upon the holy mountain of God; you walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire [like the paved work of gleaming sapphire stone upon which the God of Israel walked on Mount Sinai].^(C)

¹⁵ You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity and guilt were found in you.

¹⁶ Through the abundance of your commerce you were filled with lawlessness and violence, and you sinned; therefore I cast you out as a profane thing from the mountain of God and the guardian cherub drove you out from the midst of the stones of fire.

¹⁷ Your heart was proud and lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I lay you before kings, that they might gaze at you.

¹⁸ You have profaned your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities and the enormity of your guilt, by the unrighteousness of your trade. Therefore I have brought forth a fire from your midst; it has consumed you, and I have reduced you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who looked at you.

¹⁹ All who know you among the people are astonished and appalled at you; you have come to a horrible end and shall never return to being.^(D)

²⁰ Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

²¹ Son of man, set your face toward Sidon and prophesy against her.

²² And say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, and I will show forth My glory and be glorified in the midst of you. And they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord when I execute judgments and punishments in her, and am set apart and separated and My holiness is manifested in her.

²³ For I will send pestilence into her and blood into her streets, and the wounded shall be judged and fall by the sword in the midst of her on every side, and they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].

²⁴ And there shall be no more a brier to prick the house of Israel or a hurting thorn of all those around them who have treated them with contempt, and they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord God [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].

²⁵ Thus says the Lord God: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and I shall be set apart and separated and My holiness made apparent in them in the sight of the nations, then shall they dwell in their own land which I gave to My servant Jacob.

²⁶ And they shall dwell safely in it and shall build houses and plant vineyards; yes, they shall dwell securely and with confidence when I have executed judgments and punishments upon all those round about them who have despised and trodden upon them and pushed them away, and they shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord their God [their Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and obedient service].