Read Amplified Bible, 2015 James 2 Bible Online

James 2 - Amplified Bible, 2015 bible

James 2

¹My fellow believers, do not practice your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of partiality [toward people—show no favoritism, no prejudice, no snobbery].

²For if a man comes into your[1] meeting place[2] wearing a gold ring and[3] fine clothes, and a poor man in dirty clothes also comes in,

³and you pay special attention to the one who wears the[4] fine clothes, and say to him, "You sit here in this good seat," and you tell the poor man, "You stand over there, or sit down [on the floor] by my footstool,"

⁴have you not discriminated among yourselves, and become judges with wrong motives?

⁵Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters: has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and [as believers to be] heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

⁶But you [in contrast] have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress and exploit you, and personally drag you into the courts of law?

⁷Do they not blaspheme the[5] precious name [of Christ] by which you are called?

⁸If, however, you are [really] fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, if you have an unselfish concern for others and do things for their benefit]" you are doing well.

⁹But if you show partiality [prejudice, favoritism], you are committing sin and are convicted by the Law as offenders.

¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole Law but stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of [breaking] all of it.

¹¹For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you have become[6] guilty of transgressing the [entire] Law.

¹²Speak and act [consistently] as people who are going to be judged by the law of liberty [that moral law that frees obedient Christians from the bondage of sin].

¹³For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; but [to the one who has shown mercy] mercy triumphs [victoriously] over judgment.

¹⁴What is the benefit, my fellow believers, if someone claims to have faith but has no [good] works [as evidence]? Can that [kind of] faith save him? [No, a mere claim of faith is not sufficient—genuine faith produces good works.]

¹⁵If a brother or sister is without [adequate] clothing and lacks [enough] food for each day,

¹⁶and one of you says to them, "Go in peace [with my blessing], [keep] warm and feed yourselves," but he does not give them the necessities for the body, what good does that do?

¹⁷So too, faith, if it does not have works [to back it up], is by itself dead [inoperative and ineffective].

¹⁸But someone may say, "You [claim to] have faith and I have [good] works; show me your [alleged] faith without the works [if you can], and I will show you my faith by my works [that is, by what I do]."

¹⁹You believe that[7] God is one; you do well [to believe that]. The demons also believe [that], and shudder and bristle [in awe-filled terror—they have seen His wrath]!

²⁰But are you willing to recognize, you foolish [spiritually shallow] person, that faith without [good] works is useless?

²¹Was our father Abraham not [shown to be] justified by works [of obedience which expressed his faith] when he offered Isaac his son on the altar [as a sacrifice to God]?

²²You see that [his] faith was working together with his works, and as a result of the works, his faith was completed [reaching its maturity when he expressed his faith through obedience].

²³And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and this [faith] was credited to him [by God] as righteousness and as conformity to His will," and he was called the friend of God.

²⁴You see that a man (believer) is justified by works and not by faith alone [that is, by acts of obedience a born-again believer reveals his faith].

²⁵In the same way, was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works too, when she received the [Hebrew][8] spies as guests and protected them, and sent them away [to escape] by a different route?

²⁶For just as the [human] body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works [of obedience] is also dead.