James now compares the kind of faith that is not demonstrated in action to the faith the demons have. To open the argument he cites the central article of the Jewish faith, which both he and his opponent subscribe to.

You believe that God is one: there are some textual variations here, but they make little difference in the meaning. The Revised Standard Version rendering is a statement of fact; Contemporary English Version has a similar rendering: “You surely believe there is only one God.” Trying to bring the sense out more forcefully, some translations have rendered it as a question; for example, “Do you believe that there is only one God?” (Good News Translation; so also Translator’s New Testament) or “Do you believe in one God?” (Goodspeed). It can also be rephrased as “Do you believe that ‘God is one’?” The expression believe that appears to indicate that what the author has in mind about believe is not the more usual sense of personal trust and commitment but an intellectual consent and commitment to the content of belief, namely God is one. This confession has its origin in the Jewish Shema (“Hear, O Israel…,” Deut 6.4) and is used also by Christians (Mark 12.29; Rom 3.30).

The belief in this confession is not bad or wrong, as James goes on to say you do well, or as Good News Translation has rendered it, “Good!” (so also New International Version). However, the reason for citing it here is to point out that intellectual belief in itself is not enough. Affirming that God is one without allowing it to influence your life and conduct is simply inadequate and unreal. It may be observed that the commendation of “Good!” sounds a bit ironical in view of what James goes on to say immediately, Even the demons believe [that]—and shudder. Another possible rendering for Good is “That’s fine!” (Contemporary English Version), which in English sounds more ironical. A person who believes in the oneness of God without allowing this belief to change his or her conduct shares this faith with the demons, the evil spirits. This is not the kind of faith that can save. In the New Testament the demons do express belief in the divine (Mark 1.24; 5.7; Acts 16.16-17); and in stories of exorcisms they show fear before Christ (Mark 1.23, 24; 5.7). In front of God, their arch enemy, the demons shudder: they “tremble with fear” (Good News Translation). In a number of languages it will be necessary to add the idea of “fear” to shudder to make clear for the reader why the demons tremble. Other ways to express this are “so afraid that they tremble all over” or “so afraid that their hearts tremble [or, quake].” Demons were thought of as evil spiritual beings (“evil spirits”) or “unclean spirits” under the control of the Devil.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

James goes on to give his readers a series of practical exhortations, using ten imperatives in the next four verses. It begins with a call to submit to God, serving as the theme of the exhortation, and ends with a command to humble themselves before the Lord. Between these two commands there are three couplets, that is, pairs of parallel clauses or sentences. Basically the two clauses of the first couplet are opposite in meaning, while in the second and third couplets the two lines have similar meaning.

Submit yourselves therefore to God: the most visible sign of humility is the willingness to submit to others. Hence this call. A person can submit to others only if he or she recognizes and accepts that the others are better, worthier, and greater. To Submit is therefore to be subordinate to, to be obedient to, and to put yourself under the authority of someone, in this case God. To submit to God is to be absolutely obedient to God’s will. With this in mind we may express the first sentence as “So then, you must be completely obedient to God,” or even “Therefore you must do all that God wants you to do.”

Having stated the theme, James goes on to give a twofold saying in the form of a prohibition and a promise: Resist the devil and he will flee from you. The verb translated Resist is used in Eph 6.13, where the readers are called to “withstand” the forces of evil. It means to “stand up to” (so Translator’s New Testament, Revised English Bible) or “take a stand against” (Barclay). The word devil (the Greek means “slanderer”) is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word from which comes the word “Satan”—the adversary, slanderer, and accuser. The two words are used as identical in Rev 20.2. The devil is the source of temptation and evil, and his job is to separate people from God.

In cultures where Christianity has only arrived recently, a suitable term for Satan or the Devil may have not yet been agreed upon by the Christian community. In this case translators should carefully select, in consultation with the churches, a term that adequately translates the biblical idea of “Devil” or “Satan.” In many cultures people often recognize an evil supernatural spirit being who is active in the universe. The term used for this being may be a good translation of the devil if it refers to a spirit of demonic origin. In other cultures, however, people talk about the “chief” or “head” of the evil or bad spirits. The title for this bad spirit can almost certainly be used for the devil in the present context. However, if a suitable term cannot be found, then the name Satan may be used. If a community chooses to use the name Satan here, it will be helpful to include an item in the glossary explaining who Satan is. Other ways to express the clause Resist the devil may be “do not give in to the devil,” “do not do as the devil suggests,” “refuse to listen to the devil,” or even “fight back against the devil.”

The command is followed by a promise. The consequence of standing up to the devil is that he will flee from you. The devil can be resisted (Eph 6.13; 1 Peter 5.8-9). What James says here is this: If you fully accept the authority of God and are obedient to him, you can overcome the devil’s power; then he will “turn and run” (Revised English Bible), or “run away from you” (Barclay, Good News Translation). In certain languages it will be helpful to show the conditional relationship between the two sentences here and say, for example, “If you do not give in to the devil, he will run away from you.”

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

In contrast to the mere hearer, James now describes the true hearer. The adversative particle But introduces the contrast. The true hearer is a person who both hears and practices the word, someone who looks into the perfect law … and perseveres. The Greek participle, which is rendered as looks here, is literally “stooping down sideways to look,” that is, bending over to look carefully. The same word is used in John 20.5 and 11 of Jesus’ disciples looking intently into the tomb to see whether it is really empty. In a number of languages it will be more natural to talk about “read intently” or “study carefully” rather than “look into.”

The perfect law, the law of liberty: there is no agreement as to the background of this expression. Some scholars consider it to be of Stoic origin. Others, however, see Jewish influence as dominant; and this view seems able to explain the concept better. For a Jew like James, it would be natural and normal to understand the word law as the law of Moses, or the Old Testament. It is clear from his explanation of “the royal law” in 2.8-13 that for James this law does include the Old Testament commandments. It needs to be noted also that the law, in its Hebrew sense of “teaching” or “instruction,” is considered to be perfect (Psa 19.7). We should also note that what James presents here agrees in quite a striking way with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, where he says “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true” (Matt 5.17, TEV), and “You must be perfect—just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt 5.48, TEV). It is therefore quite possible that James has been influenced by Jesus’ reinterpretation of the law as a new law. Furthermore the perfect law is to be put into practice, just as “the word” is. It is therefore natural to assume, in the present context, that the author uses the expression as more or less equivalent to “the word” in verse 22, identified as “the implanted word” in verse 21 and “the word of truth” in verse 18. In the light of this, then, the perfect law is to be taken as the perfect Christian way of life, equivalent to the gospel message.

Fortunately in this case a full understanding of the background of the concept is not required for translation. The word perfect is best understood as “complete,” “wholesome,” “all-encompassing” and “good.” In languages where the word law always has a negative sense, we may choose to render it as “way of life,” “principle,” or “teaching,” and say, for example, “the perfect teaching” or “the completely good teaching.”

The perfect law is further characterized as the law of liberty. This expression seems to contain a contradiction, since the word law always refers to something binding, something imposed from outside, something contrary to freedom. However, the concept of law as having a liberating force is not entirely foreign in the Bible. In his meditation on God’s law in Psalm 119, for example, the psalmist says that to obey God’s law is to “set free my heart” (verse 32, Revised English Bible), to “live in perfect freedom” (verses 45-46, Good News Translation), and that God’s commandment is “exceedingly broad” (verse 96, New Revised Standard Version). In Paul’s teaching “freedom” is explained as the ability to fulfill “the law of Christ” (Gal 6.2), and the law is identified with the law of love (Rom 13.10; Gal 5.1, 13, 14). This is exactly what James has done in 2.8 and 12. The law is freedom in that by submitting to Christ a person is set free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8.2) and transformed to a life of service and love.

Basically liberty is not a description or an attribute of law but what a person experiences. For this reason it may be desirable to bring this information out by saying, for example, “[the perfect law that] sets people free” (Good News Translation), or “makes us free” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Bible en français courant). In certain languages it is necessary to say what the law sets us free from. In such cases we may render this clause as “the law [or, teaching] that sets us free from sin and death” or “… that helps us to escape from sin and death.”

The person who looks at the perfect law is different in two respects. First, he is someone who perseveres. This word, which means “to stay beside” or “to continue,” is a present participle in Greek, with a force of continual action. For this reason it is rendered as “keep on paying attention to it” (Good News Translation), “makes a habit of so doing” (Phillips), “continues to do this” (New International Version), “never stop looking at” (Contemporary English Version). Secondly, this person is further defined as being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, literally “becoming not a hearer of forgetfulness but a doer of work.” The contrast between the two parallel expressions in Greek is not natural and most likely reflects an underlying Hebrew construction. The first expression “a hearer of forgetfulness” is a genitive of quality, and so the word “forgetfulness” can be taken as an adjective, “forgetful hearer” (Moffatt; so also Barclay). The second expression, “doer of work,” is grammatically an objective genitive, but under the influence of the first construction, it is best taken as adjectival also, “active worker” (Barclay) or “active agent” (Moffatt). Since all the elements in these expressions are really action words, another way the clause can be rendered is “he does not just listen and forget, but obeys and acts upon it” (Goodspeed).

The person who listens and acts is one who puts the law into practice, and he shall be blessed in his doing. The he in Greek is “this person,” apparently used by the author for emphasis in contrast to the mere hearer. The word blessed is the same word used in 1.12, where it is rendered as “happy” by Good News Translation. In this context, however, the rendering “that man will be happy” (so Translator’s New Testament; similarly Revised English Bible) does not seem to carry the force required; and there is also the problem that “happy” is more appropriate for something a person obtains than for when they receive something. Good News Translation has rightly changed it to “blessed” here. The person who blesses is God, and this may be included as Barclay and Good News Translation have done. This blessing, as the verb shall be indicates, is perhaps best understood as a promise for the future; that is, the person who puts the law into practice will be blessed by God at the time of Christ’s coming. In his doing refers back to the word doer, so it means his putting the law into action.

An alternative translation model for this verse may be:
• But whoever studies the perfect teaching that frees people from sin and death, and keeps on doing this, God will bless him in everything he does. He is a person who does not simply listen but puts the teaching into practice.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

The contrast between a small device and the large object that it controls is brought out in the next illustration.

Look at the ships also: the demonstrative particle rendered as Look at is used to introduce the second illustration. Since this is the second illustration, we may add “or” to indicate that this is so; for example, “Or look at…” (New Revised Standard Version), “Or take … as an example” (New International Version), and “Or think of…” (Good News Translation; so also Revised English Bible). Obviously James is interested in emphasizing the parallel between the horse and the ship. This is evident in his use of also and the same verb “to guide.” The parallel is seen in the ability of a small device to control or direct something much greater. The ships are obviously sailing ships.

Though they are so great: the big size of the ships is emphasized in contrast to the smallness of the rudder. In order to bring out this tremendous contrast, as well as the force of the small thing having such control over the big thing, it is desirable to add the conjunction “though” or “although” to go with the participle “being,” as in Revised Standard Version or “Although they are so large” (New International Version). So great is one word in Greek; it has the force of “so,” thus “so big as it is” (compare Good News Translation), or “so large though it may be” (so Revised English Bible). The word “great” can have a different sense in modern English usage and is therefore best rendered as “large” (so most translations) or “big” (so Good News Translation, Translator’s New Testament), since the focus is on the size of the ships. Care must be taken that the word used for ships does not mean modern steam ships but rather sailing vessels. In cultures where only small boats are used, we may translate, for example, “big boats that sail on the ocean” or “big boats with sails to make them move on the ocean.”

Between the two clauses they are so great and are driven by strong winds, the relationship is not very clear. It does not necessarily follow from the fact that the ships are large that they are always driven by strong winds, as winds may not always be rough. For this reason some translations (following Hort) have rendered the conjunction and as “even,” for example, “and even when they are being driven by fierce winds” (Barclay; similarly Translator’s New Testament). The New Revised Standard Version rendering obviously treats the two clauses connected by an “and” as expressing one idea, thus “though they are so large that it takes strong winds to drive them.” This is certainly one possibility to be considered. The adjective strong in Greek means basically “hard,” “harsh,” or “stiff,” and in modifying “winds” it means “strong” (so most translations) or “fierce” (Barclay, New American Bible). Some languages will have a special word for this sort of wind; for example, “gales” (Revised English Bible), or a special phrase for describing it, for example, “mad winds” (Chinese). Alternative translation possibilities for the first part of this verse may be:
• Or take, for example, large sailing ships. Though they are big and it takes strong winds to drive them….

Or, in a way similar to Contemporary English Version:
• It takes a strong wind to make a large sailing ship move, but….

They are guided by a very small rudder: this clause describes what a small rudder does, and so may be rendered as “they are guided by…,” as is done by many translations. The passive verb are guided is the same verb used in verse 3 in the active voice. The use of the same verb serves to emphasize the parallel nature of the two illustrations. In this case, however, it is used of the ships and therefore may be rendered “be steered” (Good News Translation; so also Revised English Bible). The expression very small is one word in Greek; it is a superlative of the adjective small, used here to modify rudder, in contrast to so great modifying ships. A rudder (rendered “helm” in King James Version) is normally a piece of wood or metal attached upright to a ship’s stern so that it can be turned causing the ship’s bow to turn to a desired angle or direction. It is a device that directs the course or controls the direction of the ship. Many cultures that use boats have a similar device at the rear of the boat to guide it. But in cultures where rudders or large guiding oars or paddles are unknown, we may translate, for example, “it can be guided by a small piece of wood [or, metal] at the back of it” or “the steersman can guide it by using a small piece of wood….”

Wherever the will of the pilot directs: there are several problems in this clause. First, the word rendered wherever is a particle denoting place in Greek that means basically “where”; but most translations have rendered it as “wherever,” reflecting not what is demanded by normal grammatical usage but by the context. Secondly, there is uncertainty as to the exact meaning of the word rendered will. The word appears elsewhere in the New Testament only in Acts 14.5, where it means a hostile “attempt” (Revised Standard Version) or “move” (Revised English Bible). It could mean physical pressure, referring to the control of the pilot’s hand on the rudder. Most commentators and translators, however, favor the other meaning involving mental decision, thus “impulse” (American Standard Version), “inclination” (New American Bible), “wish” (Barclay), or “choice” (similarly New English Bible, Revised English Bible). Others simply combine this word with the verb meaning “to decide,” or “to wish or desire,” and translate the clause as “wherever the pilot wants it to go…” (Good News Translation), or “… whatever course the helmsman chooses” (New English Bible, Revised English Bible). Finally there is the problem of the rendering of the word pilot. Pilot is the rendering favored by most American translators, and “helmsman” by most British translators. It is the person who controls the rudder, and so it may also be rendered as “steersman” (Barclay). Contemporary English Version has rendered it as “captain,” since in modern usage a captain is an officer in charge of a ship, and he is the one ultimately responsible for the course and direction a ship should take. It seems, though, that “pilot,” “steersman,” or “the person steering the ship” fits the context of a sailing ship better than “captain.”

An alternative translation model for this verse may be:
• Let us take the example of a large sailing ship. It needs a strong wind to make it move. But a pilot [or, steersman] uses only a small rudder to make it go wherever he wishes.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Come now: James arrests the readers’ attention with the same expression as in 4.13. See the discussion there. It is obviously used for rhetorical effect, and therefore it is desirable to have the same rendering for both places. The rendering of Revised English Bible, “Next a word to you,” sounds too polite in this context, where the tone is distinctly that of rebuke. A rendering like “Now listen [or, Pay attention] to me, you rich people” is more forceful. The people addressed are you rich. For a discussion on the term rich, see 1.10. The rich in Greek is a masculine noun here, and is rendered as “ye rich men” by King James Version (similarly Living Bible); but it obviously does not mean to be exclusive, and so it is best rendered as “you rich people” (so Good News Translation, New International Version, New Revised Standard Version, Contemporary English Version). These are most likely Christians who are blessed with material wealth, people “who have great possessions” (New English Bible), and people of “affluence” (similarly Phillips).

Weep and howl: the verb weep is the same word used in 4.9, where it is used in connection with the thought of repentance. But here James calls the rich people to “weep aloud” (so Goodspeed) because of the certainty of punishment. It is not a call to repentance but a proclamation of damnation. The verb is in the imperative mood, and so in some languages it must be rendered as “you must weep…” (so Barclay). The word howl is a participle in Greek and is to be taken as defining the imperative weep. It is a word whose sound suggests its sense, or is associated with the meaning of what it describes, as in English. It is used only here in the New Testament. In the Septuagint it is often used by the prophets in the sense of loud crying or howling in grief or distress. It describes the reaction of wicked people to the horror of impending divine judgment (Isa 13.6; Ezek 21.12; Amos 8.3). Weeping aloud and howling may sound somewhat strange, indeed exaggerated, to western ears, but in some eastern cultures this is a common way of expressing deep grief and sorrow.

For the miseries that are coming upon you: this is literally “upon your miseries that are coming.” James is explaining the reason for the rich people to weep aloud and howl. In Greek the preposition “upon,” coming after a verb expressing feelings, may mean “because of.” It is so understood and rendered by New International Version, thus “… because of the misery that is coming upon you.” It is also possible to retain its literal sense of “over,” referring to the occasion, thus “… over the miseries…” (Good News Translation, Revised English Bible). The participle “coming upon” may be rendered in various ways, conditioned by the understanding of how “miseries” come in the given culture. In English the miseries may be said to be “overtaking you” (Revised English Bible; similarly Goodspeed). In other languages the miseries are “descending [or, falling] upon you”; and in yet other languages this will be expressed as “you are going to receive terrible troubles [or, miseries].” The thought here is certainly more than the uncertainty of riches, which can suddenly vanish; it is rather the terrible hardships and sufferings that are to come as the prelude to the end of the world and the final judgment, as the expression “the last days” in verse 3 obviously shows.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

The reason why Christians are told to consider “trials” as an occasion for happiness is that they may become the means through which better Christian qualities may develop.

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness is a participial phrase in Greek. The participle “knowing” has a causal force, giving the reason for “joy,” and so most modern translations have brought this out. “Knowing” in biblical usage is more than mere intellectual perception; it is something that is gained through daily experience in life; and so it may be translated as “for you have found out that…” or “for you have ascertained that….”

There are several problems in the phrase the testing of your faith. The first is the meaning of testing. The Greek word for testing here is different from the word discussed above in verse 2. The word here is sometimes used for “testing” the purity or genuineness of gold or silver. It appears elsewhere in the New Testament only in 1 Peter 1.6-7, where Peter speaks about “various trials” (verse 6) to prove “the genuineness of faith” (verse 7). In 1 Peter the focus seems to be on the result of testing, namely “the proven genuineness or test-worthiness of faith.” Some interpreters are of the opinion that the same focus is in view in the present context and have rendered it accordingly; for example, “your faith is proved” (Translator’s New Testament [Translator’s New Testament]—as reflected also in its translational notes on this verse). However, most translations take the word in the sense of the means of testing, namely “various trials” by which faith is tested. It is probably for this reason that Good News Translation renders the word also as “trials,” even though in Greek it is different from the one used in verse 2.

The second problem has to do with the rather abstract and ambiguous construction the testing of your faith. Obviously we have here a case of objective genitive; “faith” is the object “tested.” We can therefore restructure the phrase as “when your faith succeeds in facing such trials” (Good News Translation), or “when faith has passed through the ordeal of testing” (Barclay). Note that the word faith here, as in verse 6, does not mean acceptance of or giving intellectual assent to the teachings of the church. Rather, in agreement with the predominant meaning used elsewhere in the New Testament, it means a confident trust in Jesus Christ. So this clause may also be translated as “when you have passed through such trials [or, difficulties] and you still believe [in Jesus] as strongly as before.”

The word produces has the meaning of “brings about,” “works,” “achieves,” “develops.” It indicates that the “faith” that can withstand “trials” is bound to “produce” some positive result, namely the ability to endure. Steadfastness is the intended result of this “testing” process. In Greek the word steadfastness, rendered “endurance” by King James Version and “the ability to endure” by Good News Translation, does not mean a passive submission to circumstances as the English word “endurance” tends to suggest. It is rather an active quality that enables a person to persevere steadfastly through the most difficult and trying circumstances. This is the same word used in 5.11 to describe Job’s steadfastness in spite of most distressing disasters. In Rom 5.4 Paul identifies “endurance” as the heroic quality that “produces character” (RSV). In certain languages this will be expressed idiomatically; for example, “have a heart [or, liver] that endures,” or even “have a big heart.” This quality of “steadfastness,” “fortitude” (New English Bible), and “perseverance” (New International Version) is the direct result of the ability of faith withstanding testing and “trials.” For this reason produces steadfastness is rendered as “the result is the ability to endure” (Good News Translation), or more graphically as “the result is the ability to pass the breaking-point and not to break” (Barclay). It may also be rendered “going all the way without falling [or, giving in].”

An alternative translation model for this verse may be:
• For when you have found out [or, experienced] that you have passed through such trials [or, difficulties] and you still believe in Jesus as strongly as before, the result will be that you will be able to continue on without falling [or, giving in].

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Obviously verse 9 stands in a relationship of contrast or opposition with verse 8. This can be seen in a double contrast: in the particles really (“indeed,” Living Bible) … But, and in the clauses you do well … you commit sin.

You show partiality: the verb is used only here in the New Testament. It is a verbal form of the noun used in 2.1. It means discrimination, that is “to treat people according to their outward appearance” (Good News Translation). In this context it refers to an act of flattering the rich (compare “But if you flatter the great,” Knox; “when you favour the rich,” New Jerusalem Bible).

You commit sin: for James favoritism is contradictory to the command to love and is therefore an act of sin. To show partiality is to commit sin. The verb you commit sin is a strong statement, literally “you are working sin,” indicating that the sinning is deliberate and intentional. It is certainly more than an error someone has fallen into, or merely some error that a person is guilty of, as the Good News Translation rendering may suggest. It is in fact overstepping the boundary to a willful disobedience of the will of God. The person who does this is a “transgressor” as is further defined in the next clause. In certain languages you commit sin will be expressed as “you have done something very wrong.”

The people who discriminate against the poor are convicted by the law as transgressors. The law is here spoken of as a witness exposing or a judge pronouncing the accused as guilty. The word law has been interpreted in two ways. Some have taken it as a reference to the “royal law” mentioned in 2.8, for it is argued that a person cannot fulfill the “royal law” and still show favoritism to the rich and discriminate against the poor. Others have understood it to mean the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament. This is apparently the sense intended by translations that render it as “Law” (so Goodspeed, Phillips, and Good News Translation). Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has rendered it as “the law of God.” People who know the law and yet willfully disobey it are to be convicted or “condemned” by the law. They are transgressors, “offenders” (Revised English Bible) of the law, and therefore “law-breakers” (Goodspeed). The word rendered convicted is a present passive participle and therefore can be rendered as “stand convicted” (so Goodspeed, Revised English Bible) or “stand condemned.” In languages where there is no difficulty having an impersonal law convicting someone, it is possible to render the phrase as Good News Translation has done, “the Law condemns you as a lawbreaker.” Otherwise one of the following may be required: “what God commands in the Law shows that you have sinned” or “according to the words written in God’s book, you have sinned.”

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

This wisdom is not such as comes down from above: the Greek may be translated either as “This wisdom is not that which comes down from above” (New American Standard Bible), or “This is not the wisdom which comes down from above” (Barclay). In order to make it clear that this refers back to the kind of wisdom described in verses 13-14, it is possible to render This wisdom as “Such wisdom” (Goodspeed, Good News Translation, Revised English Bible). As already mentioned in 1.5, 17, the wisdom that comes down from above is from heaven, namely from God. What James wants to say here is that any wisdom that results in envy and rivalry has nothing to do with God.

Using a strong but as a contrast, James goes on to use three adjectives to describe the kind of wisdom that is not from God. The three adjectives are arranged in the form of a crescendo, a gradual increase in strength to a climax, from earthly to unspiritual to devilish.

First, the claim to have true wisdom without consistent lifestyle is earthly. The word earthly is the opposite of heavenly. This word may have a neutral meaning, but it is often used in a negative sense to refer to something as weak, temporary, and inferior. In Phil 3.18-19 Paul uses the same adjective to describe the enemies of the cross of Christ, those “going to end up in hell,” as the ones who “think only of things that belong to this world” (Good News Translation). The earthly person, then, is someone who thinks and does things with earth-bound and inferior motives. In some languages this may have to be rendered as “People who have this wisdom are only concerned with things in the world” or “This is the kind of wisdom that people in the world have.”

Secondly, such wisdom is also unspiritual. This adjective derives from the word usually translated as “soul,” and is used in contrast to the word “spiritual” in 1 Cor 2.14. This is possibly the reason why a number of translators have rendered it as “unspiritual.” The difficulty in bringing out the meaning of the word is reflected in the variety of English translations; for example, “animal” (Goodspeed, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible), “carnal” (La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée), “sensual” (King James Version), “sensuous” (Moffatt), “natural” (New American Standard Bible), “human” (Luther 1984, New Jerusalem Bible), “lowly” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch), “this worldly” (Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, Japanese New Interconfessional Translation), “selfish” (Contemporary English Version). It is obvious that the word has a large area of meaning, and that each of the above renderings covers just part of the total range of meaning of the original. In any case it refers to something of sinful human origin, something related to the natural life that human beings and animals share, something worldly and devoid of the Spirit. In some languages this may be translated as “It does not come from God’s Spirit” or “This is not the kind of wisdom that God’s Spirit causes us to have.”

Finally, such wisdom is devilish or “demonic” (Good News Translation; so also Revised English Bible), “from the devil himself” (Contemporary English Version). Devilish is the opposite of divine. This adjective is used only here in the New Testament. It may be taken to mean “demon-like” (Goodspeed), stressing that the behavior and wisdom of those described in verse 13 is similar to that of a demon. It may also be taken in the sense of “demon-inspired” (so Barclay), emphasizing that the so-called wisdom of those who are selfish and ambitious is demonic in origin, not from God. In many languages it will be helpful to render this as “It comes from the Devil himself” or “It is the Devil who gives it.”

An alternative translation model for this verse may be:
• God does not give wisdom like this to people. On the contrary it is the kind of wisdom that people in the world have. God’s Spirit does not give it. Rather it comes from the Devil himself.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .