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.
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