1. James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion, greeting:
2. My brothers count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
3. knowing that the proving of your faith works patience.
4. But let patience have its perfective work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
5. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask from God, who gives to all freely and with no reproach, and it will be given to him.
6. But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing. For the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, being driven by wind and being tossed;
7. for do not let that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
8. he is a double-souled man, not dependable in all his ways.
9. But let the lowly brother rejoice in his lifting up;
10. and the rich one rejoice in his humiliation, because he will pass away like the flower of the grass.
11. For the sun rose with the hot wind and dried up the grass, and its flower fell out, and the beauty of its appearance perished; so also the rich one will fade away in his ways. Isa. 40:6, 7
12. Blessed is the man who endures temptation, because having been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to the ones loving Him.
13. Let no one being tempted say, I am tempted from God. For God is not tempted by evil, and He tempts no one.
14. But each one is tempted by his own lusts, being drawn out and being seduced by them.
15. Then having conceived lust brings forth sin. And sin being fully formed brings forth death.
16. Do not go astray, my beloved brothers,
17. every act of good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom is no change or shadow of turning.
18. Having purposed, He brought us forth by the Word of truth, for us to be a certain firstfruit of His creatures.
19. So that, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.
20. For the wrath of man does not work out the righteousness of God.
21. On account of this, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of evil, in meekness receive the implanted Word being able to save your souls.
22. But become doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23. Because if anyone is a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, this one is like a man studying his natural face in a mirror;
24. for he studied himself, and has gone away, and immediately he forgot of what kind he was.
25. But the one looking into the perfect Law of liberty, and continuing in it, this one not having become a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in his doing.
26. If anyone thinks to be religious among you, yet not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his heart, this one's religion is vain.
27. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.