1:1 James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion: Greetings.
1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you+ fall into manifold trials;
1:3 knowing that the proving of your+ faith works patience.
1:4 And let patience have [its] perfect work, that you+ may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.
1:5 But if any of you+ lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and does not upbraid; and it will be given him.
1:6 But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing: for he who doubts is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.
1:7 For do not let that man think that he will receive anything of the Lord;
1:8 a man who is double-minded, unstable in all his ways.
1:9 But let the brother who is lowly glory in his high [position];
1:10 and the rich, in his low [position]: because as the flower of the grass he will pass away.
1:11 For the sun rises with the scorching wind, and withers the grass; and its flower falls, and the grace of its fashion perishes: so also will the rich man fade away in his ventures.
1:12 Blessed is the man who endures trial; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which [the Lord] promised to those who love him.
1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God can't be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no man:
1:14 but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own desire, and enticed.
1:15 Then the desire, when it has conceived, bears sin: and the sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
1:16 Don't be deceived, my beloved brothers.
1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights [of heaven]; with whom there is neither shift in position, nor shadow that is cast by turning.
1:18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
1:19 You+ know [this], my beloved brothers. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
1:20 for the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.
1:21 Therefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your+ souls.
1:22 But be+ doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your+ own selves.
1:23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror:
1:24 for he looks at himself, and goes away, and right away forgets what manner of man he was.
1:25 But he who looks into the perfect law, the [law] of liberty, and stays [with it], not being a hearer that forgets but a doer that works, this man will be blessed in his doing.
1:26 If any man thinks himself to be religious, while he doesn't bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is useless.
1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.