15. Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death.
16. Do not be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters.
17. All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change.
18. By his sovereign plan he gave us birth through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
19. Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.
20. For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.
21. So put away all filth and evil excess and humbly welcome the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls.
22. But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves.
23. For if someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in a mirror.
24. For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort of person he was.
25. But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out – he will be blessed in what he does.
26. If someone thinks he is religious yet does not bridle his tongue, and so deceives his heart, his religion is futile.
27. Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.