James 1:23 - An Understandable Version (2005 edition)

For if anyone is [only] a listener to the word and does not practice it, he is like a person who sees his natural face in a mirror,

More versions

King James Version (Oxford) 1769

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

Amplified Bible - Classic Edition

For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his [own] natural face in a mirror;

American Standard Version (1901)

For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror:

Common English Bible

Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror.

Catholic Public Domain Version

For if anyone is a listener of the Word, but not also a doer, he is comparable to a man gazing into a mirror upon the face that he was born with;

Douay-Rheims version of The Bible - 1752 version

For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass.

James 1:23 Cross References

Luke 6:47

Every person who comes to me and listens to my words and obeys them, I will show you who he is like.

Luke 6:7

And the experts in the Law of Moses were watching Him to see if He would heal [someone] on the Sabbath day, so they could figure out how to accuse Him.

1 Corinthians 13:12

For now [i.e., during the church’s infant state] we see in a mirror [Note: God’s word is elsewhere likened to a mirror. See James 1:22-25] indistinctly [i.e., because of having only partial knowledge and prophecy], but then [i.e., when the church matures and has the completed Scriptures], we will see face to face [i.e., clearly]. Now I have [only] partial knowledge, but then I will have full knowledge, just as [God has] full knowledge of me.

James 1:24

and [then after] he sees himself, [he] goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.