14 My friends, what is the good of a person’s saying that they have faith, if they do not prove it by actions? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose some brother or sister should be in need of clothes and of daily bread, 16 and one of you were to say to them — “Go, and peace be with you; find warmth and food for yourselves,” and yet you were not to give them the necessaries of life, what good would it be to them? 17 In just the same way faith, if not followed by actions, is, by itself, a lifeless thing. 18 Some one, indeed, may say — “You are a man of faith, and I am a man of action.”
“Then show me your faith,” I reply, “apart from any actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions.” 19 It is a part of your faith, is it not, that there is one God? Good; yet even the demons have that faith, and tremble at the thought. 20 Now do you really want to understand, fool, how it is that faith without actions leads to nothing? 21 Look at our ancestor, Abraham. Was not it the result of his actions that he was pronounced righteous after he had offered his son, Isaac, on the altar? 22 You see how, in his case, faith and actions went together; that his faith was perfected as the result of his actions; 23 and that in this way the words of scripture came true — “Abraham believed God, and that was regarded by God as righteousness,” and “He was called the friend of God.” 24 You see, then, that it is as the result of their actions that a person is pronounced righteous, and not of their faith only. 25 Was not it the same with the prostitute, Rahab? Was not it as the result of her actions that she was pronounced righteous, after she had welcomed the messengers and helped them escape by? 26 Exactly as a body is dead without a spirit, so faith is dead without actions.