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James 2 General Notes
Special concepts in this chapter
Favoritism
Some of James's readers treated rich and powerful people well and treated poor people badly. This is called favoritism, and James tells them that this is wrong. God wants his people to treat both rich people and poor people well.
Justification
Justification is what happens when God makes a person righteous. James says here that God makes righteous or justifies people who do good works along with having faith. (See: rc://en/tw/dict/bible/kt/justice and rc://en/tw/dict/bible/kt/righteous and rc://en/tw/dict/bible/kt/faith)
Other possible translation difficulties in this chapter
Quotation marks
The words "Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works" are hard to understand. Some people think that they are what "someone may say," like the words in the quotation marks. Most versions translate them as words that James is saying back to that "someone."
"You have ... I have"
Some people think that the words "you" and "I" are metonyms for "some people" and "other people." If they are correct, verse 18 could be translated, "Someone may say, 'Some people have faith and other people have works. Not everyone has both.'" If the next sentence is also what "someone may say," it could be translated "Some people show their faith without works, and other people show their faith by their works. Both have faith." In both cases, the reader will understand only if you add the extra sentence. It is probably best to translate as the ULB does. (See: rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-metonymy and rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-explicit)