Saints Translation

By Vincent Melli

James — Greek text and reception

MinisterActive compassion

James 2 — Greek text and reception

Saints Translation: James [V2 Working Draft]

Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.

Chapter 2

Partiality, mercy, and living faith

Favoritism and the royal law

Verse 2:1

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

My brothers, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with acts of favoritism.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The command reads mē with echete prohibitively; G punctuates it as a possible rhetorical question. Lord of glory supplies the title required by this construal of tēs doxēs; the Greek has glory without a repeated Lord. Reception: [R08].

Verse 2:2

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

For if a man with gold rings and splendid clothing enters your gathering, and a poor person in filthy clothing also enters,

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Synagōgē is gathering; the two arrivals and the contrast in clothing are retained. Reception: [R08].

Verse 2:3

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

and you attend to the one wearing splendid clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” but say to the poor person, “You stand, or sit there beneath my footstool,”

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Source G places there with sit; the translation does not move it into the command to stand. Reception: [R08].

Verse 2:4

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Both the discrimination and the character of the judges’ reasoning are stated. Reception: [R08].

Text [G]: NA28 opens the verse with καί (a reading NA28 shares with TR and Byz against NA27 and SBLGNT); the rendering above follows SBLGNT, and NA28 would read "and have you not made distinctions".[G][R08]

Verse 2:5

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

Listen, my beloved brothers: has not God chosen those poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom He promised to those who love Him?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Poor in the world preserves G’s dative phrase; rich in faith and heirs are separate descriptions. Reception: [R09].

Verse 2:6

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

But you have dishonored the poor person. Is it not the rich who oppress you and drag you into courts?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The direct you accusation and the question about oppression are both retained. Reception: [R09].

Verse 2:7

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

Do they not blaspheme the good name called over you?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The name remains unnamed here; the passive called over preserves the source’s expression. Reception: [R09].

Verse 2:8

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

If, however, you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The scriptural command is translated as quoted in James; no separate Hebrew/LXX comparison is claimed. Reception: [R10].

Verse 2:9

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

But if you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Favoritism is explicitly identified as sin; the law is the stated convicting agent. Reception: [R10].

Verse 2:10

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

For whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become accountable for all of it.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The whole/one/all contrast remains; no assertion that all individual offenses have identical consequences is added. Reception: [R10].

Verse 2:11

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The two commands and the concrete alternative are retained without reordering them. Reception: [R10].

Verse 2:12

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

So speak and so act as those who are going to be judged through a law of freedom.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Both speech and action are commanded; the coming judgment is explicit. Reception: [R11].

Verse 2:13

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The mercy/judgment contrast is preserved; the source does not explicitly assign a possessor to the final mercy. Reception: [R11].

Faith and works

Verse 2:14

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The question concerns a claim to faith without works; the negative-question form expects a negative answer. Saints: Augustine, Enchiridion 67 [AUG], explicitly invokes this passage when interpreting saving faith as faith active through love. Reception: [R12], [R31].

Verse 2:15

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

If a brother or sister is without clothing and lacks daily food,

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Both brother and sister and both bodily needs are explicit; gymnoi describes lack of adequate clothing in this context. Reception: [R12].

Verse 2:16

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is it?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: One person speaks, but the you who do not give is plural. The physical need is not spiritualized away. Reception: [R12].

Verse 2:17

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The conditional qualification and dead verdict remain; no later doctrinal formula replaces the wording. Reception: [R12], [R31].

Verse 2:18

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you faith by my works.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The objection’s end is an editorial punctuation decision; more than one speaker division is possible. SBLGNT has apart from works in the challenge and faith, without an added my, in the final object. Reception: [R13].

Verse 2:19

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

You believe that God is one? You do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The question and ironic commendation are retained; shudder is distinct from merely acknowledging a proposition. Reception: [R13].

Verse 2:20

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

But do you want to know, empty man, that faith apart from works is idle?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: SBLGNT reads argē, idle or ineffective, rather than dead as in Calvin’s displayed English. The word contrasts pointedly with works, erga; the stronger dead verdict in 2:17 and 2:26 remains distinct. Reception: [R14].

Verse 2:21

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Justified is retained without adding before people or before God; the action is the offered son upon the altar. Reception: [R14].

Verse 2:22

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

You see that faith was working together with his works, and by the works faith was brought to completion,

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Working together and being completed are distinct; the singular you addresses the interlocutor. Reception: [R14].

Verse 2:23

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called a friend of God.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: The fulfilled quotation and the additional designation friend are retained; no independent witness collation is claimed. Reception: [R14].

Verse 2:24

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: You is now plural. The explicit not by faith alone is preserved without harmonizing it to another letter. Reception: [R14].

Verse 2:25

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

And likewise was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works, when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another way?

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Angeloi means human messengers in this narrative context. Rahab’s designation as prostitute and the different route remain. Neither messengers nor justified is expanded to settle later interpretations. Reception: [R14].

Biblical connection — Explicit scriptural example: Joshua 2:1-21. James appeals to Rahab's reception and protection of the messengers as evidence of faith expressed in deeds.

Verse 2:26

Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)

For just as the body without spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

Textual & Reception Notes

Text [G]: Spirit or breath is the animating counterpart of body; no capitalized Holy Spirit identification is imposed. Reception: [R33], [R34].