1: James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. |
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2: My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers
temptations; |
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3: Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
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4: But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect
and entire, wanting nothing. |
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5: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to
all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. |
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6: But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that
wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. |
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7: For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of
the Lord. |
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8: A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. |
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9: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
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10: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower
of the grass he shall pass away. |
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11: For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it
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
ways. |
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12: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is
tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised
to them that love him. |
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13: Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for
God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: |
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14: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own
lust, and enticed. |
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15: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and
sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. |
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16: Do not err, my beloved brethren. |
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17: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. |
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18: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we
should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. |
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19: Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to
hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: |
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20: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
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21: Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of
naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able
to save your souls. |
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22: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving
your own selves. |
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23: For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is
like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: |
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24: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway
forgetteth what manner of man he was. |
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25: But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and
continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the
work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. |
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26: If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not
his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
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27: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is
this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to
keep himself unspotted from the world. |