James 1:27

And God also wants you to look after people that need help. He wants you to look after people that haven’t got any money to buy food, like kids that haven’t got a mother or a father, or women whose husbands have died. If you do that sort of thing, God will be happy with you. But God will not be happy with you if you just look after yourself, like the people that belong to this world do.

Plain English Version

In The King James Version

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

In Context

26You might go to church and think you are really good, but if you can’t stop yourself from saying bad things, you are really just tricking yourself, and going to church for nothing.

Read all of James 1

Cross References

Matthew 25:34Then I will say to the people on my right-hand side, ‘Come on, you mob. My father is happy with you, so you can be in his family. A long time ago, at the time when he made the world, he made a good place for you. It is ready for you now.

John 17:14I told them your message, and they listened to me, and they believed me. They don’t belong here in this world, just like I don’t belong here. So the people that belong to this world hate them.

Matthew Henry on James 1:20-27

On Suppressing Corrupt Affections; The Duty of Hearers; Practical Religion. ( a. d. 61.) 19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word,… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study James 1:27