5. Listen, my dear brothers and sisters. Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom that He promised to those who love Him?
6. But you have dishonored the poor person. Isn’t it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court?
7. Don’t they blaspheme the good name by which you were called?
8. If, however, you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.
9. But if you show favoritism, you are committing sin and are convicted by the Torah as transgressors.
10. For whoever keeps the whole Torah but stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
11. For the one who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the Torah.
12. So speak and act as those who will be judged according to a Torah that gives freedom.
13. For judgment is merciless to the one who does not show mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
14. What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can such faith save him?
15. If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,
16. and one of you says to them, “Go in shalom, keep warm and well fed, ” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is that?
17. So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.