The Bible

James Chapter 1

¹[From] James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus AnointedOne, to the twelve tribes who are scattered [abroad], greetings.

²Count it all joy, my brothers, when you-all fall into all kinds of testing, ³knowing that the proving of your faith produces endurance. ⁴Let endurance have its perfect work, that you-all may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

⁵But whoever of you-all lacks wisdom, ask it of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given. ⁶But ask in faith, without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷For that person shouldn't think that they will receive anything from the Lord. ⁸He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

⁹Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in their high position; ¹⁰and the rich, in humiliation, because like the flower of the grass, they will pass away. ¹¹For the sun rises with the scorching wind and withers the grass; and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So the rich will also fade away in their pursuits.

¹²Happier is the man who endures testing, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to those who selflessly-love him.

¹³Let no one say when tempted, "I am tempted by God," for God can't be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴But each one is tempted when lured away by their own lust and enticed. ¹⁵Then the lust, when it has conceived, gives birth to shortcoming, and the shortcoming, when full grown, produces death. ¹⁶Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. ¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor shifting shadow. ¹⁸Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

¹⁹So, then, my dear brothers, let every person be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; ²⁰for the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God. ²¹So, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

²²But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding yourselves. ²³For 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; ²⁴for he sees himself, and goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. ²⁵But the one who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, will be happier in what they do.

²⁶If anyone among you-all thinks themselves to be religious but doesn't control their tongue and deceives their heart, their religion is worthless. ²⁷This is pure, undefiled religion before our God and Father: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.