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Chapter 1 |
| 1 | James, a
servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are
scattered abroad, greeting. |
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2 | My brethren, count it all joy when ye
fall into divers temptations; |
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3 | Knowing this, that the trying of your
faith worketh patience. |
| 4 | But let patience have her perfect work, that
ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. |
| 5 | If any of you
lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. |
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6 | But let him ask in faith,
nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with
the wind and tossed. |
| 7 | For let not that man think that he shall
receive any thing of the Lord. |
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8 | A double minded man is unstable in all
his ways. |
| 9
| Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is
exalted: |
| 10
| But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the
flower of the grass he shall pass away. |
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11 | For the sun is no sooner
risen with a burning heat, but it 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 ways. |
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12 | Blessed is the man that endureth
temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the
Lord hath promised to them that love him. |
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13 | Let no man say when he is
tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man: |
| 14 | But every man is tempted, when he is drawn
away of his own lust, and enticed. |
| 15 | Then when lust hath
conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth
death. |
| 16
| Do not err, my beloved brethren. |
| 17 | Every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. |
| 18 |
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of
firstfruits of his creatures. |
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19 | Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let
every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: |
| 20 | For the
wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. |
| 21 | Wherefore
lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with
meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. |
| 22 | But
be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
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| 23 | For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a
man beholding his natural face in a glass: |
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24 | For he beholdeth
himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he
was. |
| 25 |
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work,
this man shall be blessed in his deed. |
| 26 | If any man among you seem to
be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this
man's religion is vain. |
| 27 | Pure religion and undefiled before God and
the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and
to keep himself unspotted from the world. |
