James 1

Greeting and Joy in Trials

¹James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

²Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations,

³knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

⁴Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Prayer for Wisdom

⁵But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

⁶But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed.

⁷For that man shouldn’t think that he will receive anything from the Lord.

⁸He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Rich and Poor

⁹Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position;

¹⁰and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away.

¹¹For the sun arises with the scorching wind and withers the grass; and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So the rich man will also fade away in his pursuits.

Testing and Temptation

¹²Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to those who love him.

¹³Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.

¹⁴But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.

¹⁵Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death.

¹⁶Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers.

¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow.

¹⁸Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Hearing and Doing the Word

¹⁹So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger;

²⁰for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God.

²¹Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

²²But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves.

²³For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror;

²⁴for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

²⁵But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.

²⁶If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless.

²⁷Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.