James
The Letter From James
1 James, servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes abroad, greeting.
2 Think it all gladness, my brothers, when you fall into varied temptations, 3 knowing that the test of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness take complete effect, that you may be complete, sound all over, not lacking in any respect. 5 But if one of you is lacking in wisdom let him ask of the God who gives wholeheartedly to all and says no more about it. 6 But let him ask in faith, without any doubting; for one who doubts is like a swell at sea blown about and tossing. 7 For let not that man think that he will get anything from the Lord— 8 a man of two minds, fickle in all his courses. 9 But let the lowly brother glory in his loftiness, 10 and the rich in his lowliness, because he shall pass away like field flowers. 11 For the sun rises with the hot wind, and dries up the plants, and their flowers fall off and the beauty of their faces is gone; so the rich man too shall wither in his wayfarings. 12 Happy is the man who endures temptation, because when he has stood the test he shall receive the wreath of life which God has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no one, when he is tempted, say “I am being tempted by God”; for God feels no temptations to evil, and himself tempts nobody. 14 But each one is tempted by being enticed and allured by his own desire; 15 then desire becomes pregnant and gives birth to sin, and sin grows up and brings forth its offspring death. 16 Do not be misled, my dear brothers. 17 Every good giving, every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no such thing as a variation or the shadowing of a turn. 18 Purposely did he, by the word of truth, bring us forth as his offspring, to the end that we should be a sort of firstfruits of his creatures.
19* You know it, my dear brothers. But let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for man’s anger does not practice God’s righteousness. 21 Wherefore, laying off all befoulment and profusion of malice, receive in meekness the implanted word that is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of words, and not merely self-cheating hearers; 23 because whoever is a hearer of a word and not a doer, he is like a man looking in a glass at the face he was born with; 24 for he looks at himself and goes off and forgets at once what he was like. 25 But he who gazes into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and stays by it, not showing himself a forgetful hearer but a doer in act, happy shall he be in his doing. 26 If one thinks himself devout while not bridling his tongue but deceiving his own heart, that man’s devotions are futile. 27 Pure and undefiled devotions in the eyes of God the Father are these: to look after orphans and widows in their distress; to keep one’s self unspotted from the world.