James 1:21-27

1:21 So put away all filth and evil excess and humbly ¹  welcome the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls. 1:22 But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves. 1:23 For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone ²  who gazes at his own face ³  in a mirror. 1:24 For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets ⁴  what sort of person he was. 1:25 But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, ⁵  and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out – he ⁶  will be blessed in what he does. ⁷  1:26 If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile. 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before ⁸  God the Father ⁹  is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

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¹ tn Or “with meekness.”

² tn The word for “man” or “individual” is ἀνήρ (anhr), which often means “male” or “man (as opposed to woman).” However, as BDAG 79 s.v. 2 says, here it is “equivalent to τὶς someone, a person.”

³ tn Grk “the face of his beginning [or origin].”

⁴ tn Grk “and he has gone out and immediately has forgotten.”

⁵ tn Grk “continues.”

⁶ tn Grk “this one.”

⁷ tn Grk “in his doing.”

⁸ tn Or “in the sight of”; Grk “with.”

⁹ tn Grk “the God and Father.”