James 1:17–27

¹⁷Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration.

¹⁸For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of his creature.

¹⁹You know, my dearest brethren. And let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak and slow to anger.

²⁰For the anger of man worketh not the justice of God.

²¹Wherefore, casting away all uncleanness and abundance of naughtiness, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

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

²³For if a man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass.

²⁴For he beheld himself and went his way and presently forgot what manner of man he was.

²⁵But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work: this man shall be blessed in his deed.

²⁶And if any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

²⁷Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation and to keep one’s self unspotted from this world.