Known for its declaration, "Faith without works is dead," (2:26), the letter of James is not addressed to a single church or community. Rather it is addressed to the “diaspora” or Jews who were scattered among the nations. James, however, is not merely writing to Jews, but Jewish Christians living outside Israel specifically scattered among the nations (also Hellenistic Jewish Christians). As to the location of his audience, there is no mention of it in the book, though the book mentions that these believers meet in a synagogue (2:2), and had somehow experienced persecutions, harassment and “trials of various kinds”, were forced out of their homeland, taken advantage of by their rich neighbors by dragging them to court(1;2; 2:6), and driven to poverty by abusive wealthy landowners (1:9-11; 5:4-6).

In this passage, the harsh language used by James is comparable to Amos 8:4-6; Amos 5:16-20; 6:1-7; Isaiah 5:8-23; Habakkuk 2:6 – 19, and those of Jesus in Matthew 23:13-29, and more intense than the previous warning in 4:13-17. While the latter includes a call to repent in 4:17, there is no such call in this passage. Here, James addresses those who have been the cause of the hardship and poverty of some of his listeners (cf. 1:9-11), and condemns them for acquiring wealth (5:1-3) through oppressive means and their abuse of wealth and authority(5:3b-6).