2 My brothers, you believe in our Lord, the wonderful Jesus Christ. So you must not think one man is better than another.

² A man comes in to your church meeting. He has a gold ring and wears fine clothes. A poor man also comes in. He wears old clothes.

³ You look at the man who wears fine clothes. And you say to him, `Sit here on this good chair.' But you say to the poor man, `Stand over there,' or you say, `Sit on the floor by my feet.'

⁴ If you do these things, you think some people are better than others. You are wrong when you judge people this way.

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers. God has chosen people who are poor in this world. They believe very much. They will have a place in the kingdom which he has promised to give to those who love him.

⁶ But you made the poor man ashamed. Is it not the rich people who trouble you? Are not they the ones who take you to court?

⁷ Are not they the ones who say wrong things about the good name you have?

⁸ The holy writings say, `Love your neighbour as you love yourself.' If you obey this law of your King you do well.

⁹ But if you think one man is better than another, that is wrong. The law says you are a bad person.

¹⁰ Anyone who obeys the law, but then breaks one of the laws, has broken all the laws.

¹¹ God made the law, `Do not use sex wrongly.' God also made the law, `Do not kill'. If you do not have wrong sex, but you kill, you have broken the law.

¹² There is a law that makes people free. It is the law of showing kindness. Always talk and live like men who will be judged by that law.

¹³ When God judges, he will not be kind to a person who has not been kind. It is better to be kind than it is to judge people.

¹⁴ My brothers, perhaps a man says, `I believe.' What good is that if he does not do anything? Can just believing save him?

¹⁵ Perhaps a brother or a sister needs clothes and has no food.

¹⁶ Perhaps one of you says to them, `God bless you. Be warm. Eat all you want.' But what good is that if you do not give them what they need for their bodies?

¹⁷ Believing is like that. If it does not do anything it is no good. Belief by itself is dead.

¹⁸ In that case someone may say, `You believe. And I do good things. Try to show me that you believe without doing any acts of kindness. I will show you that I believe by doing acts of kindness.'

¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. That is right. But even the bad spirits believe that. And they shake with fear.

²⁰ You are foolish! Believing is no good if it does not do anything good. Do you want to know that for sure?

²¹ Look at Abraham. God called our father Abraham a good man. This was because he gave his son Isaac to God on the holy table for a sacrifice.

²² You can see he believed. His faith and the things he did worked together. His believing was made all right because he did something.

²³ The words of the holy writings came true. They say, `Abraham believed God. And he was called a good man because of it.' In another place he was called `God's friend.'

²⁴ You see, a man is a good man because of the things he does, and not just because he believes.

²⁵ Rahab was a bad woman. But in the same way God called her a good woman because of something she did. She took the men into her house and then let them go out another way.

²⁶ A body is dead if it does not breathe. In the same way, believing is dead if it does not do anything good.