1 My brothers, do you try to combine faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with acts of partiality?
2 For if a finely dressed man with a gold ring comes into a meeting, and a poor man in shabby clothes comes in also,
3 and you pay attention to the man in the fine clothes and say to him, "Sit here; this is a good place!" and say to the poor man, "Stand up, or sit on the floor at my feet,"
4 have you not wavered and shown that your judgments are guided by base motives?
5 Listen, my dear brothers. Has not God chosen the world's poor to be rich in faith, and to possess the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?
6 But you humiliate the poor. Are not the rich your oppressors? Is it not they who drag you into court?
7 Is it not they who slander the noble name you bear?
8 If you really obey the supreme law where the Scripture says, "You must love your neighbor as you do yourself," you are doing right,
9 but if you show partiality, you are committing a sin, and stand convicted before the Law as lawbreakers.
10 For anyone who obeys the whole of the Law but makes one single slip is guilty of breaking it all.
11 For he who said, "You must not commit adultery," said also, "You must not commit murder." Now if you abstain from adultery, but commit murder, you are still a violator of the Law.
12 You must talk and act like men who expect to be judged by the law that treats men as free.
13 For the merciless will be mercilessly judged; but mercy will triumph over judgment.
14 My brothers, what is the good of a man's saying he has faith, if he has no good deeds to show? Can faith save him?
15 If some brother or sister has no clothes and has not food enough for a day,
16 and one of you says to them, "Goodbye, keep warm and have plenty to eat," without giving them the necessaries of life, what good does it do?
17 So faith by itself, if it has no good deeds to show, is dead.
18 But someone may say, "You have faith, and I good deeds." Show me your faith without any good deeds, and I will show you my faith by my good deeds.
19 Do you believe in one God? Very well! So do the demons, and they shudder.
20 But do you want proof, my senseless friend, that faith without good deeds amounts to nothing?
21 Was not our forefather Abraham made upright for his good deeds, for offering his son Isaac on the altar?
22 You see that in his case faith and good deeds worked together; faith found its highest expression in good deeds,
23 and so the Scripture came true that says, "Abraham had faith in God, and it was credited to him as uprightness, and he was called God's friend."
24 You see a man is made upright by his good deeds and not simply by having faith.
25 Was not even Rahab the prostitute made upright for her good deeds, in entertaining the scouts and sending them off by a different road?
26 Just as the body without the spirit is dead, faith is dead without good deeds.