A Warning Not to Forget God in Prosperity

8 “The entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors.^{(A) 2} Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.^{(B) 3} He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.^{(C) 4} The clothes on your back did not wear out, and your feet did not swell these forty years.^{(D) 5} Know, then, in your heart that, as a parent disciplines a child, so the Lord your God disciplines you.^{(E) 6} Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.^{(F) 7} For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills,^{(G) 8} a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, ⁹ a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. ¹⁰ You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.^(H)

Salutation

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

To the twelve tribes in the dispersion:

Greetings.

Faith and Wisdom

² My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy,^{(A) 3} because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

⁵ If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.^{(B) 6} But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.^{(C) 7,8} For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Poverty and Riches

⁹ Let the brother or sister of humble means boast in having a high position ¹⁰ and the rich in having been humbled, because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field.^{(D) 11} For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the field; its flower falls, and its beauty perishes. It is the same way with the rich; in the midst of a busy life, they will wither away.

Trial and Temptation

¹² Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord^[a] has promised to those who love him.^{(E) 13} No one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴ But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; ¹⁵ then, when desire has conceived, it engenders sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.^(F)

Peter’s Declaration about Jesus

¹⁸ Once when Jesus^[a] was praying alone, with only the disciples near him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”^{(A) 19} They answered, “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah; and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.”^{(B) 20} Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Messiah^[b] of God.”^(C)

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

²¹ He sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone,^{(D) 22} saying, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.”^(E)

²³ Then he said to them all, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.^{(F) 24} For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.^{(G) 25} For what does it profit them if they gain the whole world but lose or forfeit themselves?^{(H) 26} Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.^{(I) 27} Indeed, truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”^(J)