Paragraph 2:20–26

In this paragraph, James gave two examples to show his readers that faith without deeds is useless. He used the examples of Abraham and Rahab from the Old Testament. He argued that it was because of their deeds that both Abraham and Rahab were declared righteous by God.

Throughout section 2:14–26, James was contrasting faith without deeds (for example, 2:14, 2:17, 2:18) with faith demonstrated by deeds (2:18). In this paragraph, when James said that Abraham was declared to be righteous “by deeds,” it does not mean by deeds alone. It is implied that Abraham had faith and that this faith was demonstrated by deeds. You may want to put some of this information in the translation or in a footnote. Some suggestions are in the notes on “for what he did” (2:21b) and “by his deeds” (2:24b).

2:20

O foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is worthless?: This is a rhetorical question. It has two functions. First, it is a rebuke. James was rebuking anyone who thought that it was possible to have true faith without doing good deeds. The second function of this rhetorical question is to introduce the examples that James was about to give from the Old Testament (2:21–25).

Some ways to translate this rebuke are:

• As a rhetorical question. For example:

You fool! Do you have to be shown that faith which does nothing is useless? (God’s Word)

• As a statement. For example:

You fool! Surely you do not need me to show you that faith without good deeds is worthless.
-or-
You fool! I will prove/show to you that faith without good deeds is useless. Here are two examples.

Translate this rebuke in a way that is natural in your language.

2:20a

O foolish man: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as foolish literally means “empty.” Here it is used figuratively to describe a person who has “empty” thoughts. In other words, it is a person who does not think wisely and correctly. This person could be a man or a woman.

In this verse, James rebuked the person who disagreed with him. So in Greek, the pronoun man is singular. However, James was also rebuking anyone who believed that it was possible to have faith without good deeds. So, in some languages, it will be more natural to use the plural form “men” or “people” here.

Use a term that is natural in your language for a mild rebuke.

Some other ways to translate this phrase are:

You stupid person
-or-
You crazy/mad people
-or-
You(sing) are not thinking carefully
-or-
You^(plur) are not being wise
-or-
Do you still not understand?

do you want evidence: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as do you want evidence is literally “do you want to know?” Some other ways to translate this phrase are:

Do you want to be shown (Good News Translation)
-or-
Must you be shown (New Century Version)
-or-
Do you have to be told (Revised English Bible)
-or-
Do I need to show/tell you
-or-
Can’t you see (New Living Translation (2004 Revision))

2:20b

faith without deeds is worthless: In Greek, the words faith and deeds are nouns. In some languages, it may be more natural to translate these nouns as verbs. For example:

If you believe in Jesus but do no good to show it, what use is that?
-or-
it’s useless to believe if you do not do any good to prove it.

deeds: The word deeds is the same word that occurs in 2:14c.

worthless: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as worthless here means “without results,” or “unproductive.” (The Greek manuscript copies do not all agree at this point. The modern English versions translate a word that means useless, while King James Version and footnotes in Good News Translation and New International Version (2011 Revision) follow one that means “dead.” There is not much difference in the meaning, but it is recommended that you follow the UBS Handbook Greek text and the reading “useless.”) Some other ways to translate this word are:

futile (Revised English Bible)
-or-
worth nothing (New Century Version)
-or-
is of no value/use

© 2012 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.