They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don’t do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain. Behold, you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they don’t do them.
⛓ Read Ezekiel 33 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
The people 'hear your words, but they will not do them'; the prophet is to them like a pleasant singer they enjoy yet disobey. James's hearers-who-are-not-doers, self-deluded, directly mirrors Ezekiel's indictment of those who listen without obeying.
Medium confidenceEcho1
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
Ezekiel rebukes those who hear the word but do not do it; Jesus' true family are precisely those who both hear and do. The hearing-versus-doing contrast supplies Coherence; Volume low.
Low confidence