[1] James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
[2] My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations;
[3] Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience.
[4] But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
[5] If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not; and it shall be given him.
[6] But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
[7] For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
[8] A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
[9] Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
[10] But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
[11] For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it wither the grass, and the flower thereof falls, and the grace of the fashion of it perishes: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.
[12] Blessed is the man that endures temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has 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, neither tempts he any man:
[14] But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
[15] Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.
[16] Do not err, my beloved brothers.
[17] Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no ficklenss, neither shadow of turning.
[18] Of his own will fathered he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
[19] Why, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
[20] For the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God.
[21] Why lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
[22] But be you doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
[23] For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like to a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
[24] For he beholds himself, and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was.
[25] But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
[26] If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridles not his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
[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.