OET-RV YAC section

Note that the OET uses ‘Yacob’ for ‘The Letter of Jacob’ (wrongly called ‘James’ in older Bibles).

This is still a very early look into the unfinished text of the Open English Translation of the Bible. Please double-check the text in advance before using in public.

Faith in action

Yac 2:14–26

2:14 Faith in action

14 My fellow believers, what would I gain if I said that someone had faith but it didn’t alter how they live their life? Faith like that wouldn’t be able to save them. 15 If a fellow believer is lacking clothes or food, 16 and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace and be warm and satisfied,’ but don’t help with their physical needs, what use would that be? 17 In other words, faith without the corresponding lifestyle is just dead.

18 No doubt someone will say, ‘Well you have the faith and I do the good deeds.’ So show me your faith without good deeds and I’ll demonstrate my faith by my good deeds. 19 You believe that there’s one God and you’re right, but even the demons believe that and shudder. 20 But the vain person still wants to know if faith without good deeds is wasted? 21 Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham considered right with God due to his actions when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?[ref] 22 So his faith was working together with his actions, and it was by his actions that his faith was perfected. 23 This fulfilled the scripture that says, ‘Abraham believed in God and so he was consider to be right with God, and was called a friend of God.’[ref] 24 So you can see that a person is considered right with God due to his actions, and not just by their ‘faith’. 25 Similarly the prostitute Rahab was made right by her actions when she welcomed the Hebrew messengers and then helped them get away by a different route.[ref] 26 Just like a body is dead once the spirit has departed, so too faith is dead if it’s not demonstrated by good deeds.

2:21: Gen 22:1-14.

2:23: a Gen 15:6; b 2Ch 20:7; Isa 41:8.

2:25: Josh 2:1-21.

Collected OET-RV cross-references

Gen 22:1-14:

22:1 God tests Abraham over Yitshak

22 Several years later, God decided to test Abraham, calling him, “Abraham.”[ref]

“Here I am,” he replied.

2 “Take your son Yitshak who you love, your only son,” God commanded him, “and go to the Moriah region and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I’ll point out to you.”[ref]

3 So Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. Then he took two of his young men with him and his son Yitshak, and he cut some firewood for the burnt offering. Then they left to go to the place that God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up ahead and he could see the place from a distance, 5 so he said to his young men, “Stay here by yourselves with the donkey while the boy and I go over there to worship God, then we’ll come back to you here.”

6 So Abraham took the firewood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Yitshak, and he carried the fire pot and the knife. Then the two of them went on together, 7 and Yitshak asked his father Abraham his father, “My father?”

“Yes, son?”, he replied.

“We’ve got the fire and the wood,”, he continued, “but where’s the lamb for the burnt offering?”

8 “God will provide the lamb for the burnt offering himself, my son,” Abraham answered, and then the two of them continued on together.

9 Then they came to the place that God had told him, and Abraham built an altar there and arranged the firewood on it. Then he tied up his son Yitshak and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.[ref] 10 Then Abraham took the knife and raised his arm to kill his son, 11 but one of Yahweh’s messengers called to him from the sky and said, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am.” he answered.

12 “Don’t lift up your hand against the boy,” the messenger continued. “And don’t do anything to him, because now I know that you respect and obey God, since you haven’t withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

13 Then Abraham raised his head and looked around, and wow, there was a ram was behind him, caught by its horns in the thicket. So Abraham went and grabbed the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham named that place ‘Yahweh will provide’, and to this day it’s still said, “Yahweh will provide on his mountain.”