[1] James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting.
[2] Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations;
[3] knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience.
[4] And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.
[5] But 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.
[6] But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.
[7] For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord;
[8] a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways.
[9] But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate:
[10] and the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
[11] For 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.
[12] Blessed 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.
[13] Let 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:
[14] but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.
[15] Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.
[16] Be not deceived, my beloved brethren.
[17] Every 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.
[18] Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
[19] Ye know this, my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
[20] for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
[21] Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
[22] But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.
[23] For 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:
[24] for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
[25] But 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.
[26] If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man’s religion is vain.
[27] Pure 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.