| 1 James the servant of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. | |
| 2 My brethren, count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations; | |
| 3 Knowing that the trying of your faith worketh patience. | |
| 4 And patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing. | |
| 5 But 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. | |
| 6 But 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. | |
| 7 Therefore let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. | |
| 8 A double minded man is inconstant in all his ways. | |
| 9 But let the brother of low condition glory in his exaltation: | |
| 10 And the rich, in his being low; because as the flower of the grass shall he pass away. | |
| 11 For 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. | |
| 12 Blessed 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. | |
| 13 Let 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. | |
| 14 But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured. | |
| 15 Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death. | |
| 16 Do not err, therefore, my dearest brethren. | |
| 17 Every 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. | |
| 18 For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of his creatures. | |
| 19 You know, my dearest brethren. And let every man be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slow to anger. | |
| 20 For the anger of man worketh not the justice of God. | |
| 21 Wherefore casting away all uncleanness, and abundance of naughtiness, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. | |
| 22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. | |
| 23 For 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. | |
| 24 For he beheld himself, and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. | |
| 25 But 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. | |
| 26 And if any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain. | |
| 27 Religion 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. | |
