1 JAMES, a servant of God, and of our Lord Jesus the Messiah; to the twelve tribes dispersed among the Gentiles; greeting [peace].
2 Let it be all joy to you, my brethren, when ye enter into many and various trials.
3 For ye know, that the trial of [your] faith, maketh you possess patience.
4 And let patience have its perfect work, so that ye may be complete and perfect, and may lack nothing.
5 And if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask [it] of God, who giveth to all freely, and reproacheth not; and it will be given him.
6 But let him ask in faith, not hesitating: he who hesitateth is like the waves of the sea, which the wind agitateth.
7 And let not that man expect to receive any thing of the Lord,
8 who is hesitating in his mind, and unstable in all his ways.
9 And let the depressed brother rejoice, in his elevation;
10 and the rich, in his depression; because, like the flower of an herb, so he passeth away.
11 For the sun riseth in its heat, and drieth up the herb; and its flower falleth, and the beauty of its appearance perisheth: so also the rich man withereth in his ways.
12 Blessed is the man who endureth temptations; so that when he is proved he may receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love him.
13 Let no one when he is tempted, say, I am tempted of God: for God is not tempted with evils, nor doth he tempt any man.
14 But every man is tempted by his own lust; and he lusteth, and is drawn away.
15 And this [his] lust conceiveth, and bringeth forth sin; and sin, when mature, bringeth forth death.
16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17 Every good and perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights, with whom is no mutation, not even the shadow of change.
18 He saw fit, and begat us by the word of truth; that we might be the first-fruits of his creatures.
19 And be ye, my beloved brethren, every one of you, swift to hear, and slow to speak; and slow to wrath:
20 for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21 Wherefore, remove far from you all impurity, and the abundance of wickedness; and, with meekness, receive the word that is implanted in our nature, which is able to vivify these your souls.
22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only; and do not deceive yourselves.
23 For if any man shall be a hearer of the word, and not a doer of it, he will be like one who seeth his face in a mirror:
24 for he seeth himself, and passeth on, and forgetteth what a man he was.
25 But every one that looketh upon the perfect law of liberty and abideth in it, is not a hearer of something to be forgotten, but a doer of the things; and he will be blessed in his work.
26 And if any one thinketh that he worshippeth God, and doth not restrain his tongue, but his heart deceiveth him; his worship is vain.
27 For the worship that is pure and holy before God the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and that one keep himself unspotted from the world.
|
