Meeting with testing and trials
1
📚James✭, a servant of God and of the Lord✭ Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered✭ abroad, greeting. Counting it all joy
2 📚My brethren, count it all joy✭ when you fall into various trials✭,
Knowing that it will produce good results
3 📚knowing✭ that the trying of your faith produces patient endurance✭. 4 📚But let patient endurance have its perfect✭ work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Asking God for wisdom
5 📚✭If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask it from God, who gives to everyone liberally✭ and without criticizing✭, and it will be given✭ to him. 6 📚But let him ask in faith✭, without wavering✭ at all. For he who wavers is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 📚For let not that man think that he will receive any thing from the Lord. 8 📚A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
Both the poor and the rich should rejoice
9 📚Let the brother in lowly circumstances rejoice because he is exalted✭, 10 📚but the rich because he is made low✭, for like the flower of the grass he will pass away. 11 📚✭For as soon as the sun has risen with burning heat, it withers the grass, and its flower falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So also the rich man will fade away in his ways.
The reward for patiently enduring trials
12 📚Blessed✭ is the man who endures trials, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown✭ of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him✭.
The reward for patiently enduring trials
13 📚✭When tempted let no one say, “I am tempted by God”, for God cannot be tempted by evil✭, nor does he tempt anyone.
Temptation, desire, sin, and death
14 📚✭But each person is tempted, being drawn away by his own evil desire, and enticed. 15 📚✭Then when desire has conceived, it brings forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.
God’s good gifts
16 📚Make no mistake✭, my dear brethren, 17 📚✭every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights✭, with whom is no variability✭, or shadow of turning. 18 📚✭Of his own will he begot us✭ with the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of firstfruits✭ of his creation.
Listening and doing
19 📚✭So, my beloved brethren, let everyone be swift to hear✭, slow to speak✭, slow to get angry✭. 20 📚For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 📚Therefore lay aside✭ all filthiness and the abounding wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted Word✭, which is able to save your souls.
22 📚✭But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers, deceiving yourselves. 23 📚For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man seeing his natural face in a mirror✭. 24 📚For he sees himself, and goes his way, and immediately forgets what he looked like. 25 📚✭But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues to do so, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the deed, this man will be blessed in what he does.
True religion
26 📚✭If anyone among you seems to be religious, and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is useless. 27 📚✭Pure and faultless religion before God the Father is this: To look after the fatherless and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.