| Chapter
1 |
| 1 | James,
a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are
scattered abroad, greeting. |
| 2 |
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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: |
| 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. |
