James 1
|
James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting. |
Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; |
Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience. |
And let patience have [its] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. |
But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. |
But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. |
For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; |
a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways. |
But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate: |
and the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. |
For the sun ariseth with the scorching wind, and withereth the grass: and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his goings. |
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which [the Lord] promised to them that love him. |
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man: |
but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. |
Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death. |
Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. |
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning. |
Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. |
Ye know [this], my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: |
for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. |
Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. |
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. |
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: |
for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. |
But he that looketh into the perfect law, the [law] of liberty, and [so] continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing. |
If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man's religion is vain. |
Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep oneself unspotted from the world. |