¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of change. ¹⁸By his^* will he gave birth to us through the message of truth, so that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Doers of the Message, Not Just Hearers

¹⁹Understand this, my dear brothers: every person must be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, ²⁰for human^e anger does not accomplish the righteousness of God. ²¹Therefore, putting aside all moral uncleanness and wicked excess, welcome^f with humility the implanted message which is able to save your souls.

²²But be doers of the message and not hearers only,^g deceiving yourselves, ²³because if anyone is a hearer of the message and not a doer, this one is like someone^h staring at his own faceⁱ in a mirror, ²⁴for he looks at himself and goes away and immediately forgets what sort of person he was. ²⁵But the one who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues to do it, not being a forgetful hearer but a doer who acts, this one will be blessed in what he does^j.

²⁶If anyone thinks he is religious, although he^* does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. ²⁷Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our^* God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Read in Logos

James 1:17: Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Footnotes

*Here “by” is supplied as a component of the participle (“will”) which is understood as means
eLiterally “man’s”
fOr “receive”
gSome manuscripts have “not only hearers”
hLiterally “a man,” but clearly in a generic sense here meaning “someone, a person”
iLiterally “the face of his existence”
jLiterally “in his doing”
*Here “although” is supplied as a component of the participle (“bridle”) which is understood as concessive
*Literally “the”; the Greek article is used here as a possessive pronoun