but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
Parallel translations
- WEB But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors.
- KJV But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
- BSB But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
- NASB But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the Law as violators.
- NLT But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
But to show partiality is to commit sin and stand convicted by the law as a transgressor. Favoritism is a clear breach of God's command to love.
Overview
James draws the verdict: partiality violates the law of love and so is genuine sin, convicting the offender as a lawbreaker. There is no neutral favoritism; it directly contradicts the command just cited. This sets up the following verses' teaching that any single violation makes one guilty before the whole law.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Lev 19:15“‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor show favoritism to the great; but you shall judge your neighbor in righteousness.
- Jas 2:1–4My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality.
- John 8:9They, when they heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning from the oldest, even to the last. Jesus was left alone with the woman where she was, in the middle.
- 1 Jn 3:4Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.
- Rom 3:20Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
- John 16:8When he has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment;
- John 8:46Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
- Gal 2:19For I, through the law, died to the law, that I might live to God.
- Jude 1:15to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
- 1 Cor 14:24But if all prophesy, and someone unbelieving or unlearned comes in, he is reproved by all, and he is judged by all.
- Rom 7:7–13What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn’t have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The wisdom from above and the royal law of love are the life of those who belong to 'our glorious Lord Jesus Christ' — faith in him made visible in works.
How James 2:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.