Discovery BoxJames 1:21-27 
Context1:21 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.
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.”
