Beginning

He exhorts to rejoice in trouble, to be fervent in prayer with steadfast belief, to look for all good things from above, to forsake all vice, and thankfully to receive the word of God, not only hearing it and speaking of it, but to do thereafter in deed. True religion or devotion: what it is.

1 James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, sends greeting to the twelve tribes which are scattered here and there. 

² My brethren, count it exceeding joy when you fall into various trials, ³ seeing as you know that the trying of your faith brings patience. ⁴ And let patience have her perfect work, so that you may be perfect and sound, lacking nothing.

⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all impartially, and casts no man in the teeth, and it shall be given him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, and waver not. For he who doubts is like the waves of the sea, tossed with the wind and carried about. ⁷ Neither let that person think that he will receive anything from the Lord. ⁸ A wavering-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

⁹ Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, ¹⁰ and the rich in that he is made low. For like the flower of the grass, he will vanish away. ¹¹ The sun rises with heat, and the grass withers, and its flower falls away, and the beauty of the appearance of it perishes; even so shall the rich man perish with his abundance.

¹² Happy is the man who endures in temptation, for when he is proved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him.

¹³ Let no one say when he is tempted, that he is tempted by God. For God tempts not to evil, nor does he tempt anyone, ¹⁴ but every person is tempted, drawn away, and enticed by his own fleshly nature and evil desire. ¹⁵ Then when desire has conceived, she brings forth sin, and sin when it is full-grown brings forth death.

¹⁶ Do not be mistaken, my dear brethren. ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of light, with whom is no variableness nor turning to darkness. ¹⁸ Of his own will he begat us with the word of life, that we should be the first fruits of his creatures.

¹⁹ Therefore, dear brethren, let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. ²⁰ For the wrath of man does not work that which is righteous before God. ²¹ Therefore lay apart all uncleanness, and all lingering evil and vice, and receive with meekness the word that is grafted in you, which is able to save your souls. ²² And see that you be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with sophistry. ²³ For if anyone hears the word and does it not, he is like a man that looks at his bodily face in a mirror. ²⁴ For as soon as he has looked at himself, he goes his way and forgets immediately what his appearance was. ²⁵ But whoever looks in the perfect law of liberty and continues in it (if he is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work), this one shall be happy in his deed.

²⁶ If anyone among you seems devout, yet refrains not his tongue, but betrays his own heart into mischief, this one’s devotion is in vain. ²⁷ Pure devotion, and undefiled before God the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their adversity, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

He forbids them to have any respect of persons, but to regard the poor as well as the rich, to be loving and merciful, and not to boast of faith where no deeds are. For it is but a dead faith where good works do not follow.

2 Brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, in respect of persons. ² If there comes into your company a man with a golden ring and in goodly apparel, and there comes in also a poor man in wretched clothing, ³ and you have a respect to him who wears the fine clothing, and say to him, Sit here in a good place, but say to the poor, Stand there, or, Sit here by my footstool, ⁴ are you not partial among yourselves, and have judged after evil thoughts?

⁵ Hearken, my dear beloved brethren. Has not God chosen the poor of this world, who are rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you have dishonoured the poor. Are not the rich those who oppress you, and who draw you before judges? ⁷ Do they not speak evil of that good name after which you are named?

⁸ If you fulfil the royal law according to the scripture that says, You shall love your neighbour as yourself – you do well. ⁹ But if you regard one person more than another, you commit sin, and are rebuked by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ Whoever keeps the whole law, and yet fails in one point, is guilty in all. ¹¹ For he who said: You shall not commit adultery, said also: You shall not kill. Though you commit no adultery, yet if you kill, you are a transgressor of the law.

¹² So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. ¹³ For there will be judgment merciless to him who shows no mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴ What avails it, my brethren, though a person say he has faith, when he has no deeds? Can faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or a sister is without proper clothing, or destitute of daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, Depart in peace; may God send you warmth and food – and notwithstanding, you do not give them those things that are needful to the body, what help is it? ¹⁷ Even so faith, if it has no deeds, is dead in itself.

¹⁸ Yea, and someone might say, You have faith, and I have deeds; show me your faith by your deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. ¹⁹ Do you believe that there is one God? You do well. The devils also believe, and tremble.

²⁰ Will you understand, O vain man, that faith without deeds is dead? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified through works when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar? ²² You see that faith operated with his deeds, and through the deeds, the faith was made perfect. ²³ And the scripture was fulfilled that says: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him for righteousness. And he was called the friend of God.  ²⁴ You see then how by deeds a man is justified, and not by faith only. ²⁵ Likewise also, was not Rahab the harlot justified through works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

²⁶ For as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without deeds is dead.

What good and evil comes through the tongue. The duty of the learned. The difference between the wisdom of the gospel and the wisdom of the world.

3 My brethren, be not every man a counsellor, remembering that we will receive the stricter judgment. ² For in many things, we all sin.

If a person does not sin in word, he is a perfect man, and able to tame all the body. ³ Behold, we put bits into the horses’ mouths so that they will obey us, and we turn about all their body. ⁴ Behold also the ships, which, though they be so large, and are driven by fierce winds, yet are turned about with a very small helm, wherever the helmsman chooses to steer. ⁵ Even so the tongue is a little member, yet boasts great things.

Behold how great a thing a little fire kindles. ⁶ And the tongue is fire, and a world of wickedness. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets afire all the course of our life, and is itself set afire even by hell.

⁷ All kinds of beasts, and of birds and of serpents and things of the sea, are meeked and tamed by the powers of man. ⁸ But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless God the Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰ Out of one mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. ¹¹ Does a spring send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter also? ¹² Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries, or a vine bear figs? Likewise can no spring give both salt water and fresh also.

¹³ If any be wise and learned among you, let him show the works of his good living in humility that is coupled with wisdom. ¹⁴ But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, do not be pleased, neither be liars against the truth. ¹⁵ This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly, and natural, and devilish. ¹⁶ For where envying and strife are, there is instability and all manner of evil works.

¹⁷ But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated – full of mercy and good fruits, without judging and without dissimulation. ¹⁸ Yea and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who maintain peace.

Conflict and fighting come from sensuality and covetousness. The friendship of the world is enmity before God. An exhortation to flee slander and the vanity of this life.

4 Where do conflict and fighting come from among you? Do they not come from the sensuality and covetousness that reign in your members? ² You lust, and have not. You envy, and have indignation, and cannot obtain. You fight and war, and have not because you ask not. ³ You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, even to consume it upon your pleasures.

⁴ You adulterers and women who break matrimony, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity toward God? Whoever will be a friend of the world, is made the enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think that the scripture says in vain, the Spirit that dwells in you resists envy, ⁶ but gives more grace?

⁷ Submit yourselves to God. And resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purge your hearts, ye wavering-minded. ⁹ Suffer afflictions: sorrow ye, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. ¹⁰ Cast yourselves down before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

¹¹ Do not backbite one another, brethren. He who speaks against his brother, and he who judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not an observer of the law, but a judge. ¹² There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you, to judge another man?

¹³ Come now, you who say, Today and tomorrow let us go into such and such a city, and continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and make money, ¹⁴ and yet do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what thing is your life? It is even a vapour, which appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Therefore you ought to say, If the Lord so wills, and if we live, let us do this or that. ¹⁶ But now you glory in your boastings. All such glorying is evil.

¹⁷ Therefore, to him who knows how to do good but does it not, to him it is sin.

He threatens the wicked rich people. He exhorts to patience, to beware of swearing, to acknowledge our faults to one another, to pray for one another, and one to labour to bring another to the truth.

5 Come now, ye rich people. Weep and howl over your wretchedness that will come upon you. ² Your riches are corrupt; your garments are moth eaten. ³ Your gold and your silver are cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and will eat your flesh as it were fire.

You have heaped treasure together in your last days. ⁴ Behold, the wages of the labourers who have reaped down your fields (which wages you kept back by fraud) cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord Sabaoth. ⁵ You have lived in pleasure on the earth, and in wantonness. You have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned and have killed the just, and he has not resisted you.

⁷ Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until it receives the early and the latter rain. ⁸ You also, be patient therefore, and settle your hearts. For the coming of the Lord draws near.

⁹ Do not grudge against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge stands before the door.

¹⁰ Take, my brethren, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering adversity, and of long patience. ¹¹ Behold, we count them happy who endure. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have known what end the Lord made. For the Lord is very pitiful and merciful.

¹² But above all things, my brethren, swear not – neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath. Let your yes be yes, and your no no, lest you fall into hypocrisy.

¹³ If any of you be vexed with sorrows, let him pray. If any of you be merry, let him sing psalms. ¹⁴ If any be diseased among you, let him call for the elders of the congregation, and let them pray over him, and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.

¹⁶ Confess your faults to one another. And pray for one another, that you may be healed: The fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. ¹⁷ Elijah was a man mortal just as we are, and he prayed in his prayer that it might not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. ¹⁸ And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruits.

¹⁹ Brethren, if any of you err from the truth and another converts him, ²⁰ let him know that he who turned the sinner from going astray out of his way will save a soul from death, and will hide the multitude of sins.

The end of the epistle
of Saint James.