Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

JAMES,

A SLAVE OF GOD

AND OF THE

LORD JESUS CHRIST,

To the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, Greeting.

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials, knowing that the trial of your faith works endurance. And let endurance have its perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally and does not throw it up to them, and it will be given you. But let him ask in faith, without any doubts. For he who doubts is like the surge of the sea driven by the winds and blasts. For do not let that man think he will receive anything from the Lord; a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

1:9.

But let the lowly brother glory

In his exaltation,

And the rich

In his humiliation.

Because like the flower of the grass

He will pass away,

For the sun rises with the scorching heat,
And withers the grass;

And its flower falls,

And the goodliness of its form perishes. In this way, too, will the rich man

Fade away in his goings.

Blessed is the man who endures temptation.

For when he has been approved,

He will receive the crown of life
Which the Lord promised

To those who love him.

Let no one say when he is tempted,

It is from God that I am tempted.

For God cannot be tempted with evil, `

And he tempts no one.

But each one is tempted,

When he is drawn away by his own desire and enticed.

Then the desire

When it has conceived bears sin,

And the sin,

When it is full grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

I: 15.

Every good giving and every perfect gift is from above,

And comes down from the Father of lights, With whom can be no variation,

Nor shadow which is cast by turning.

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth,

That we should be a kind of first-fruits of his

creatures.

You know this, my beloved brothers.

But let every man be swift to hear,

Slow to speak, slow to wrath.

For the wrath of man

Does not work the goodness of God,

So, putting away all filthiness

And overflowing malice,

Receive with meekness the implanted word
Which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word,

And not hearers only, deluding your own selves. For if any one is a hearer of the word, and not

a doer,

He is like a man looking at his natural face in a glass,

I: 24.

For he looks at himself and goes away,

And at once forgets what kind of a man he

was.

But he who looks into the perfect law,

The law of liberty, and continues to look,

Being not a hearer who forgets, but a doer who works,

This man will be blessed in his doing.
If any one thinks himself to be religious,
While he does not bridle his tongue,
But deceives his heart,

This man's religion is vain.

Pure religion,

And undefiled before our God and Father, is this,

To visit the fatherless and widows in their afflic

tion,

And to keep himself unspotted from the world.

My brothers, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there comes into your synagogue a gold-ringed man, in gorgeous clothes, and there comes in also a poor man in squalid clothes; and you look with respect on him who wears the gorgeous clothes, and say, Sit here honorably; And you say to the poor man, Stand there, or sit under my footstool; are you not

2:4

divided in your own mind and have become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved brothers.

Did not God choose those who are poor so far as this world is concerned to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him?

But you have dishonored the poor.

Do not the rich oppress you, and themselves drag you to courts of justice? Is it not they who revile the noble name by which you are called? If, however, you keep the royal law according to the scripture:

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,

you do well.

But if you are person-accepting, it is sin which you are committing, and you are convicted by the law as law-breakers.

For whoever shall keep the whole law, yet offend in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said:

said also:

Do not commit adultery,

Do not kill.

Now if you do not commit adultery, but kill, you have become a law-breaker.

So speak and so act as men who are to be judged by a law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to him who has showed no mercy. Mercy glories over judgment.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »