¹⁶ “But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks and hearkened not to Thy commandments.

¹⁷ And they refused to obey, neither were mindful of Thy wonders that Thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and forsookest them not.

¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

¹⁸ Of His own will, He begot us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

¹⁹ Therefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;

²⁰ for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

²¹ Therefore lay apart all filthiness and the superfluity of wickedness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls.

²² But be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

²³ For if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror;

²⁴ for he beholdeth himself, and then goeth his way and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

²⁵ But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

²⁶ If any man among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

²⁷ Pure religion, undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.