²³ You who ^(A)make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?

⁴ who are Israelites, ^(A)to whom pertain the adoption, ^(B)the glory, ^(C)the covenants, ^(D)the giving of the law, ^(E)the service of God, and ^(F)the promises;

² Much in every way! Chiefly because ^(A)to them were committed the ^[a]oracles of God.

The Jews Guilty as the Gentiles

^17 [a]Indeed ^(A)you are called a Jew, and ^(B)rest^[b] on the law, ^(C)and make your boast in God,

⁴⁵ Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; ^(A)there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust.

¹⁶ But now you boast in your arrogance. ^(A)All such boasting is evil.

¹⁷ Therefore, ^(B)to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

²² But ^(A)be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For ^(B)if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; ²⁴ for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. ²⁵ But ^(C)he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, ^(D)this one will be blessed in what he does.

²⁶ If anyone ^[a]among you thinks he is religious, and ^(E)does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. ^27 (F)Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: ^(G)to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, ^(H)and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

²⁸ Then they reviled him and said, “You are His disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. ²⁹ We know that God ^(A)spoke to ^(B)Moses; as for this fellow, ^(C)we do not know where He is from.”

¹¹ The Pharisee ^(A)stood and prayed thus with himself, ^(B)‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.