Peacemakers who sow in peace reap the fruit of righteousness.
Parallel translations
- WEB Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
- KJV And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
- NKJV Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
- NASB And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
- NLT And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.
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
Those who make peace sow in peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. Right living grows out of a peaceable, not a quarrelsome, spirit.
Overview
Concluding the contrast between earthly and heavenly wisdom, James says the genuine righteousness God desires is cultivated by peacemakers, not by the envious and contentious. The agricultural image pictures peaceable people planting and gathering a crop of right standing and right conduct. This anticipates the next chapter's diagnosis of strife and echoes Jesus' blessing on the peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), who reflect the God of peace reconciling sinners through Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Matt 5:9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
- Hos 10:12Sow for yourselves righteousness and reap the fruit of loving devotion; break up your unplowed ground. For it is time to seek the LORD until He comes and sends righteousness upon you like rain.
- Phil 1:11filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
- Isa 32:16–17Then justice will inhabit the wilderness, and righteousness will dwell in the fertile field.
- Gal 6:8The one who sows to please his flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; but the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
- Prov 11:30The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.
- Prov 11:18The wicked man earns an empty wage, but he who sows righteousness reaps a true reward.
- Heb 12:11No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.
- John 4:36Already the reaper draws his wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.
- Jas 1:20for man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness that God desires.
- Prov 11:28He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like foliage.
- Amos 6:12“Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—
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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 3:18 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
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