1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into various temptations;
3knowing that the trying of your faith worketh endurance.
4But let endurance have a perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting in nothing.
5But if any one of you is wanting in wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally, and upbraideth not; and it will be given him.
6But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting; for he that doubteth is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.
7For let not that man think that he shall receive anything from the Lord,
8a double-minded man as he is, unstable in all his ways.
9Let the brother of low degree glory in that he is exalted;
10but the rich, in that he is made low; because as the flower of the grass he will pass away.
11For the sun rose with its burning heat, and withered the grass, and its flower fell off, and the beauty of its appearance perished; so also will the rich man fade away in his ways.
12Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is approved, he will receive the crown of life, which He promised to them that love him.
13Let no one when he is tempted, say, I am tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he tempteth no one.
14But each one is tempted when by his own lust he is led away and enticed;
15then lust, having conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin, when completed, bringeth forth death.
16Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights, with whom is no change, nor shadow from turning.
18Of his own will he begot us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.
19Wherefore, my beloved brethren, 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 put off all filthiness, and excess of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
22But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23For if any one is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass;
24for he beholds himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what manner of man he was.
25But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty, and remains there, being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in his deed.
26If any one thinks that he is religious, and bridles not his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27Pure religion and undefiled before God, the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep one's self unspotted from the world.