James 2
Worldwide English (New Testament)
2 My brothers, you believe in our Lord, the wonderful Jesus Christ. So you must not think one man is better than another.
2 A man comes in to your church meeting. He has a gold ring and wears fine clothes. A poor man also comes in. He wears old clothes.
3 You look at the man who wears fine clothes. And you say to him, `Sit here on this good chair.' But you say to the poor man, `Stand over there,' or you say, `Sit on the floor by my feet.'
4 If you do these things, you think some people are better than others. You are wrong when you judge people this way.
5 Listen, my dear brothers. God has chosen people who are poor in this world. They believe very much. They will have a place in the kingdom which he has promised to give to those who love him.
6 But you made the poor man ashamed. Is it not the rich people who trouble you? Are not they the ones who take you to court?
7 Are not they the ones who say wrong things about the good name you have?
8 The holy writings say, `Love your neighbour as you love yourself.' If you obey this law of your King you do well.
9 But if you think one man is better than another, that is wrong. The law says you are a bad person.
10 Anyone who obeys the law, but then breaks one of the laws, has broken all the laws.
11 God made the law, `Do not use sex wrongly.' God also made the law, `Do not kill'. If you do not have wrong sex, but you kill, you have broken the law.
12 There is a law that makes people free. It is the law of showing kindness. Always talk and live like men who will be judged by that law.
13 When God judges, he will not be kind to a person who has not been kind. It is better to be kind than it is to judge people.
14 My brothers, perhaps a man says, `I believe.' What good is that if he does not do anything? Can just believing save him?
15 Perhaps a brother or a sister needs clothes and has no food.
16 Perhaps one of you says to them, `God bless you. Be warm. Eat all you want.' But what good is that if you do not give them what they need for their bodies?
17 Believing is like that. If it does not do anything it is no good. Belief by itself is dead.
18 In that case someone may say, `You believe. And I do good things. Try to show me that you believe without doing any acts of kindness. I will show you that I believe by doing acts of kindness.'
19 You believe that there is one God. That is right. But even the bad spirits believe that. And they shake with fear.
20 You are foolish! Believing is no good if it does not do anything good. Do you want to know that for sure?
21 Look at Abraham. God called our father Abraham a good man. This was because he gave his son Isaac to God on the holy table for a sacrifice.
22 You can see he believed. His faith and the things he did worked together. His believing was made all right because he did something.
23 The words of the holy writings came true. They say, `Abraham believed God. And he was called a good man because of it.' In another place he was called `God's friend.'
24 You see, a man is a good man because of the things he does, and not just because he believes.
25 Rahab was a bad woman. But in the same way God called her a good woman because of something she did. She took the men into her house and then let them go out another way.
26 A body is dead if it does not breathe. In the same way, believing is dead if it does not do anything good.
James 2
Living Bible
2 Dear brothers, how can you claim that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, if you show favoritism to rich people and look down on poor people?
2 If a man comes into your church dressed in expensive clothes and with valuable gold rings on his fingers, and at the same moment another man comes in who is poor and dressed in threadbare clothes, 3 and you make a lot of fuss over the rich man and give him the best seat in the house and say to the poor man, “You can stand over there if you like or else sit on the floor”—well, 4 judging a man by his wealth shows that you are guided by wrong motives.
5 Listen to me, dear brothers: God has chosen poor people to be rich in faith, and the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs, for that is the gift God has promised to all those who love him. 6 And yet, of the two strangers, you have despised the poor man. Don’t you realize that it is usually the rich men who pick on you and drag you into court? 7 And all too often they are the ones who laugh at Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear.
8 Yes indeed, it is good when you truly obey our Lord’s command, “You must love and help your neighbors just as much as you love and take care of yourself.” 9 But you are breaking this law of our Lord’s when you favor the rich and fawn over them; it is sin.
10 And the person who keeps every law of God but makes one little slip is just as guilty as the person who has broken every law there is. 11 For the God who said you must not marry a woman who already has a husband also said you must not murder, so even though you have not broken the marriage laws by committing adultery, but have murdered someone, you have entirely broken God’s laws and stand utterly guilty before him.
12 You will be judged on whether or not you are doing what Christ wants you to. So watch what you do and what you think; 13 for there will be no mercy to those who have shown no mercy. But if you have been merciful, then God’s mercy toward you will win out over his judgment against you.
14 Dear brothers, what’s the use of saying that you have faith and are Christians if you aren’t proving it by helping others? Will that kind of faith save anyone? 15 If you have a friend who is in need of food and clothing, 16 and you say to him, “Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat hearty,” and then don’t give him clothes or food, what good does that do?
17 So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good works is no faith at all—it is dead and useless.
18 But someone may well argue, “You say the way to God is by faith alone, plus nothing; well, I say that good works are important too, for without good works you can’t prove whether you have faith or not; but anyone can see that I have faith by the way I act.”
19 Are there still some among you who hold that “only believing” is enough? Believing in one God? Well, remember that the demons believe this too—so strongly that they tremble in terror! 20 Fool! When will you ever learn that “believing” is useless without doing what God wants you to? Faith that does not result in good deeds is not real faith.
21 Don’t you remember that even our father Abraham was declared good because of what he did when he was willing to obey God, even if it meant offering his son Isaac to die on the altar? 22 You see, he was trusting God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to; his faith was made complete by what he did—by his actions, his good deeds. 23 And so it happened just as the Scriptures say, that Abraham trusted God, and the Lord declared him good in God’s sight, and he was even called “the friend of God.” 24 So you see, a man is saved by what he does, as well as by what he believes.
25 Rahab, the prostitute, is another example of this. She was saved because of what she did when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. 26 Just as the body is dead when there is no spirit in it, so faith is dead if it is not the kind that results in good deeds.
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The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.