James 4-5

James 4

¹Whence are wars and fightings among you? not thence -- out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members?

²ye desire, and ye have not; ye murder, and are zealous, and are not able to attain; ye fight and war, and ye have not, because of your not asking;

³ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend it.

⁴Adulterers and adulteresses! have ye not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever, then, may counsel to be a friend of the world, an enemy of God he is set.

⁵Do ye think that emptily the Writing saith, ‘To envy earnestly desireth the spirit that did dwell in us,'

⁶and greater grace he doth give, wherefore he saith, ‘God against proud ones doth set Himself up, and to lowly ones He doth give grace?'

⁷be subject, then, to God; stand up against the devil, and he will flee from you;

⁸draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you; cleanse hands, ye sinners! and purify hearts, ye two-souled!

⁹be exceeding afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter to mourning be turned, and the joy to heaviness;

¹⁰be made low before the Lord, and He shall exalt you.

¹¹Speak not one against another, brethren; he who is speaking against a brother, and is judging his brother, doth speak against law, and doth judge law, and if law thou dost judge, thou art not a doer of law but a judge;

¹²one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; thou -- who art thou that dost judge the other?

¹³Go, now, ye who are saying, ‘To-day and to-morrow we will go on to such a city, and will pass there one year, and traffic, and make gain;'

¹⁴who do not know the thing of the morrow; for what is your life? for it is a vapour that is appearing for a little, and then is vanishing;

¹⁵instead of your saying, ‘If the Lord may will, we shall live, and do this or that;'

¹⁶and now ye glory in your pride; all such glorying is evil;

¹⁷to him, then, knowing to do good, and not doing, sin it is to him.

James 5

¹Go, now, ye rich! weep, howling over your miseries that are coming upon you;

²your riches have rotted, and your garments have become moth-eaten;

³your gold and silver have rotted, and the rust of them for a testimony shall be to you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye made treasure in the last days!

⁴lo, the reward of the workmen, of those who in-gathered your fields, which hath been fraudulently kept back by you -- doth cry out, and the exclamations of those who did reap into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth have entered;

⁵ye did live in luxury upon the earth, and were wanton; ye did nourish your hearts, as in a day of slaughter;

⁶ye did condemn -- ye did murder the righteous one, he doth not resist you.

⁷Be patient, then, brethren, till the presence of the Lord; lo, the husbandman doth expect the precious fruit of the earth, being patient for it, till he may receive rain -- early and latter;

⁸be patient, ye also; establish your hearts, because the presence of the Lord hath drawn nigh;

⁹murmur not against one another, brethren, that ye may not be condemned; lo, the Judge before the door hath stood.

¹⁰An example take ye of the suffering of evil, my brethren, and of the patience, the prophets who did speak in the name of the Lord;

¹¹lo, we call happy those who are enduring; the endurance of Job ye heard of, and the end of the Lord ye have seen, that very compassionate is the Lord, and pitying.

¹²And before all things, my brethren, do not swear, neither by the heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath, and let your Yes be Yes, and the No, No; that under judgment ye may not fall.

¹³Doth any one suffer evil among you? let him pray; is any of good cheer? let him sing psalms;

¹⁴is any infirm among you? let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, having anointed him with oil, in the name of the Lord,

¹⁵and the prayer of the faith shall save the distressed one, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if sins he may have committed, they shall be forgiven to him.

¹⁶Be confessing to one another the trespasses, and be praying for one another, that ye may be healed; very strong is a working supplication of a righteous man;

¹⁷Elijah was a man like affected as we, and with prayer he did pray -- not to rain, and it did not rain upon the land three years and six months;

¹⁸and again he did pray, and the heaven did give rain, and the land did bring forth her fruit.

¹⁹Brethren, if any among you may go astray from the truth, and any one may turn him back,

²⁰let him know that he who did turn back a sinner from the straying of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.