So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed; the prayers of the righteous have a powerful effect.

Greet it as pure joy, my brothers, when you come across any sort of trial,

Whoever of you is defective in wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all men without question or reproach, and the gift will be his.

Is anyone ill? let him summon the presbyters of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;

all we are given is good, and all our endowments are faultless, descending from above, from the Father of the heavenly lights, who knows no change of rising and setting, who casts no shadow on the earth.

Pure, unsoiled religion in the judgment of God the Father means this: to care for orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself from the stain of the world.

My brothers, what is the use of anyone declaring he has faith, if he has no deeds to show? Can his faith save him?

Act on the Word, instead of merely listening to it and deluding yourselves.

Well then, submit yourselves to God; resist the devil, and he will fly from you:

if you attend to the wearer of the handsome clothes and say to him, "Sit here, this is a good place," and tell the poor man, "You can stand," or "Sit there at my feet,"

you have condemned, you have murdered the righteous ??unresisting.

Yet he gives grace more and more: thus it is said, The haughty God opposes, but to the humble he gives grace.

(Wanton creatures! do you not know that the world's friendship means enmity to God? Whoever, then, chooses to be the world's friend, turns enemy to God.

Be sure of that, my beloved brothers. Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to talk, slow to be angry ??20 for human anger does not promote divine righteousness;

Let no one who is tried by temptation say, 'My temptation comes from God'; God is incapable of being tempted by evil and he tempts no one.

Blessed is he who endures under trial; for when he has stood the test, he will gain the crown of life which is promised to all who love Him.

You believe in one God? Well and good. So do the devils, and they shudder.

Is anyone of you in trouble? let him pray. Is anyone thriving? let him sing praise.

that man need not imagine he will get anything from God,

My brothers, do not swell the ranks of the teachers; remember, we teachers will be judged with special strictness.

For whoever obeys the whole of the Law and only makes a single slip, is guilty of everything.

My brothers, as you believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Glory, pay no servile regard to people.

but let one who is rich exult in being lowered; for the rich will pass away like the flower of the grass ??11 up comes the sun with the scorching wind and withers the grass, its flower drops off, and the splendour of it is ruined: so shall the rich fade away amid their pursuits.

Where do conflicts, where do wrangles come from, in your midst? Is it not from these passions of yours that war among your members?

draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: greeting.

Look at ships too; for all their size and speed under stiff winds, they are turned by a tiny rudder wherever the mind of the steersman chooses.

So faith, unless it has deeds, is dead in itself.

[follows 2:26] Whoever, then, knows what is right to do and does not do it, that is a sin for him.

Be patient, then, brothers, till the arrival of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious crop of the land, biding his time patiently till he gets the autumn and the spring rains;

Everyone is tempted as he is beguiled and allured by his own desire;

Who among you is wise and learned? Let him show by his good conduct, with the modesty of wisdom, what his deeds are.

It was his own will that we should be born by the Word of the truth, to be a kind of firstfruits among his creatures.

For as the body without the breath of life is dead, so faith is dead without deeds.

Come now, you rich men, weep and shriek over your impending miseries!

Come now, you who say, "To-day or to-morrow we are going to such and such a city; we shall spend a year there trading and making money" ??14 you who know nothing about to-morrow! For what is your life? You are but a mist, which appears for a little and then vanishes.

are you not drawing distinctions in your own minds and proving that you judge people with partiality?

so clear away all the foul rank growth of malice, and make a soil of modesty for the Word which roots itself inwardly with power to save your souls.

You observe it is by what he does that a man is justified, not simply by what he believes.

Only, let him ask in faith, with never a doubt; for the doubtful man is like surge of the sea whirled and swayed by the wind;

If you really fulfil the royal law laid down by scripture, You must love your neighbour as yourself, well and good;

The wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, forbearing, conciliatory, full of mercy and wholesome fruit, unambiguous, straightforward;

Whereas he who gazes into the faultless law of freedom and remains in that position, proving himself to be no forgetful listener but an active agent, he will be blessed in his activity.

You crave, and miss what you want: you envy and covet, but you cannot acquire: you wrangle and fight ??you miss what you want because you do not ask God for it;

Whoever considers he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, his religion is futile.

you do ask and you do not get it, because you ask with the wicked intention of spending it on your pleasures.

Someone will object, 'And you claim to have faith!' Yes, and I claim to have deeds as well; you show me your faith without any deeds, and I will show you by my deeds what faith is!

My brothers, if anyone of you goes astray from the truth and someone brings him back,

Listen, my beloved brothers; has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the realm which he has promised to those who love him?

Above all, my brothers, never swear an oath, either by heaven or by earth or by anything else; let your "yes" be a plain "yes," your "no" a plain "no," lest you incur judgment.

But will you understand, you senseless fellow, that faith without deeds is dead?

[vss

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the prayer of faith will restore the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; even the sins he has committed will be forgiven him.

We all make many a slip, but whoever avoids slips of speech is a perfect man; he can bridle the whole of the body as well as the tongue.

and the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham believed God, and this was counted to him as righteousness ??he was called God's friend.

And the tongue is a fire, the tongue proves a very world of mischief among our members, staining the whole of the body and setting fire to the round circle of existence with a flame fed by hell.

have patience yourselves, strengthen your hearts, for the arrival of the Lord is at hand.

humble yourselves before the Lord, and then he will raise you up.

With the tongue we bless the Lord and Father, and with the tongue we curse men made in God's likeness;

Suppose some brother or sister is ill-clad and short of daily food;

Lament and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to depression;

then Desire conceives and breeds Sin, while Sin matures and gives birth to Death.

sure that the sterling temper of your faith produces endurance;

Elijah was a man with a nature just like our own; but he offered prayer that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain;

See, we call the stedfast happy; you have heard of the stedfastness of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord with him, seen that the Lord is very compassionate and pitiful.

he glances at himself, goes off, and at once forgets what he was like.

understand that he who brings a sinner back from the error of his way saves his soul from death and hides a host of sins.

follow 2:13] Do not defame one another, brothers; he who defames or judges his brother defames and judges the Law; and if you judge the Law, you pass sentence on it instead of obeying it.

One alone is the legislator, who passes sentence; it is He who is able to save and to destroy; who are you, to judge your neighbour?

For whoever listens and does nothing, is like a man who glances at his natural face in a mirror;

only, let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect.

Now you insult the poor. Is it not the rich who lord it over you and drag you to court?

You ought rather to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live to do this or that."

But here you are, boasting in your proud pretensions! All such boasting is wicked.

Is it not they who scoff at the noble Name you bear?

For while every kind of beast and bird, of creeping animals and creatures marine, is tameable and has been tamed by mankind,

but if you pay servile regard to people, you commit a sin, and the Law convicts you of transgression.

Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives? Or a vine, figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

blessing and cursing stream from the same lips! My brothers, this ought not to be.

He who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not kill. Now if you do not commit adultery but if you kill, you have transgressed the Law.

Does a fountain pour out fresh water and brackish from the same hole?

Suppose there comes into your meeting a man who wears gold rings and handsome clothes, and also a poor man in dirty clothes;

your wealth lies rotting, and your clothes are moth-eaten;

then he prayed again, and the sky yielded rain, the earth brought forth its fruit.

your gold and silver lie rusted over, and their rust will be evidence against you, it will devour your flesh like fire. [Moved to the end of 5:1] You have been storing up treasure in the very last days;

You have revelled on earth and plunged into dissipation; you have fattened yourselves as for the Day of slaughter;

We put bridles into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, and so, you see, we can move the whole of their bodies.

When our father Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar, was he not justified by what he did?

for the judgment will be merciless to the man who has shown no mercy ??whereas the merciful life will triumph in the face of judgment.

So the tongue is a small member of the body, but it can boast of great exploits. What a forest is set ablaze by a little spark of fire!

But if you are cherishing bitter jealousy and rivalry in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on that ??and be false to the truth.

for wherever jealousy and rivalry exist, there disorder reigns and every evil.

Let a brother of low position exult when he is raised;

See, the wages of which you have defrauded the workmen who mowed your fields call out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

double-minded creature that he is, wavering at every turn.

So too with Rahab the harlot. Was she not justified by what she did, when she entertained the scouts and got them away by a different road?

Speak, act, as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom;

As an example of fortitude and endurance, brothers, take the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord.

no man can tame the tongue ??plague of disorder that it is, full of deadly venom!

What, do you consider this is an idle word of scripture? ??'He yearns jealously for the spirit he set within us.')

Make no mistake about this, my beloved brothers:

That is not the wisdom which comes down from above, it is an earthly wisdom, sensuous, devilish;

In his case, you see, faith co-operated with deeds, faith was completed by deeds,

Do not murmur against one another, brothers, lest you are judged; look, the Judge is standing at the very door!

and the peacemakers who sow in peace reap righteousness.

if any of you says to them, "Depart in peace! Get warm, get food," without supplying their bodily needs, what use is that?