But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works.

Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.”

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we will be judged more strictly.

And if we put bits into the mouths of horses to get them to obey us, then we guide their entire bodies.

By his sovereign plan he gave us birth through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

My brothers and sisters, do not show prejudice if you possess faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

You ought to say instead, “If the Lord is willing, then we will live and do this or that.”

With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in God’s image.

My brothers and sisters, consider it nothing but joy when you fall into all sorts of trials,

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?

From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters.

Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters, or a vine produce figs? Neither can a salt water spring produce fresh water.

Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, “The spirit that God caused to live within us has an envious yearning”?

My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back,

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can this kind of faith save him?

For we all stumble in many ways. If someone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect individual, able to control the entire body as well.

Think of how we regard as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and you have seen the Lord’s purpose, that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.