James 1

1 ¹James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting. ²Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; ³Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience. ⁴And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing. ⁵But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. ⁶But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. ⁷For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; ⁸a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways. ⁹But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate: ¹⁰and the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. ¹¹For the sun ariseth with the scorching wind, and 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 goings. ¹²Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to them that love him. ¹³Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man: ¹⁴but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. ¹⁵Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death. ¹⁶Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. ¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning. ¹⁸Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. ¹⁹Ye know this, my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: ²⁰for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. ²¹Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. ²²But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. ²³For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: ²⁴for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. ²⁵But he that looketh into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing. ²⁶If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man's religion is vain. ²⁷Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.