A reading from the letter of James.

My sisters and brothers, what good is it to profess faith without practicing it?  Such faith has no power to save.  If anyone is in need of clothes and has no food to live on, and one of you says to them, “Good-bye and good luck.  Keep warm and be well fed,” without giving them the bare necessities of life, then what good is this?  So it is with faith.  If good works do not go with it, it is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith.  I have deeds.”  The answer to this line of reasoning is, “I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds.  Now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.”

The Word of God recorded in the letter of James.