James 1
1
Greeting
1From James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To God’s faithful people #1:1 Or “to the twelve tribes.” who have been scattered.
Greetings.
When You Are Tested, Turn to God
2My brothers and sisters, be very happy when you are tested in different ways. 3You know that such testing of your faith produces endurance. 4Endure until your testing is over. Then you will be mature and complete, and you won’t need anything.
5If any of you needs wisdom to know what you should do, you should ask God, and he will give it to you. God is generous to everyone and doesn’t find fault with them. 6When you ask for something, don’t have any doubts. A person who has doubts is like a wave that is blown by the wind and tossed by the sea. 7A person who has doubts shouldn’t expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8A person who has doubts is thinking about two different things at the same time and can’t make up his mind about anything.
9Humble believers should be proud because being humble makes them important. 10Rich believers should be proud because being rich should make them humble. Rich people will wither like flowers. 11The sun rises with its scorching heat and dries up plants. The flowers drop off, and the beauty is gone. The same thing will happen to rich people. While they are busy, they will die.
12Blessed are those who endure when they are tested. When they pass the test, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. 13When someone is tempted, he shouldn’t say that God is tempting him. God can’t be tempted by evil, and God doesn’t tempt anyone. 14Everyone is tempted by his own desires as they lure him away and trap him. 15Then desire becomes pregnant and gives birth to sin. When sin grows up, it gives birth to death.
16My dear brothers and sisters, don’t be fooled. 17Every good present and every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father who made the sun, moon, and stars. The Father doesn’t change like the shifting shadows produced by the sun and the moon.
18God decided to give us life through the word of truth to make us his most important creatures.
19Remember this, my dear brothers and sisters: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and should not get angry easily. 20An angry person doesn’t do what God approves of. 21So get rid of all immoral behavior and all the wicked things you do. Humbly accept the word that God has placed in you. This word can save you.
22Do what God’s word says. Don’t merely listen to it, or you will fool yourselves. 23If someone listens to God’s word but doesn’t do what it says, he is like a person who looks at his face in a mirror, 24studies his features, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25However, the person who continues to study God’s perfect laws that make people free and who remains committed to them will be blessed. People like that don’t merely listen and forget; they actually do what God’s laws say.
26If a person thinks that he is religious but can’t control his tongue, he is fooling himself. That person’s religion is worthless. 27Pure, unstained religion, according to God our Father, is to take care of orphans and widows when they suffer and to remain uncorrupted by this world.
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James 1: GW
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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
St James 1
1
1James the servant of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
2My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations;
3Knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4And patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing.
5But if any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, which is moved and carried about by the wind.
7Therefore let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
8A double minded man is inconstant in all his ways.
9But let the brother of low condition glory in his exaltation:
10And the rich, in his being low; because as the flower of the grass shall he pass away.
11For the sun rose with a burning heat, and parched the grass, and the flower thereof fell off, and the beauty of the shape thereof perished: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
12Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been proved, he shall receive a crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love him.
13Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and he tempteth no man.
14But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured.
15Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death.
16Do not err, therefore, my dearest brethren.
17Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change, nor shadow of alteration.
18For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of his creatures.
19You know, my dearest brethren. And let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger.
20For the anger of man worketh not the justice of God.
21Wherefore casting away all uncleanness, and abundance of naughtiness, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
22But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass.
24For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was.
25But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty, and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work; this man shall be blessed in his deed.
26And if any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
27Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation: and to keep one's self unspotted from this world.
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An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.