4: II. He who talks against a brother, or judges his brother, Talks against the law and judges the law. You are not a doer of the law but a judge. He who is able to save and to destroy. Come now, you who say: To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and make money. And you do not know what shall happen to-morrow. What is your life ? For you are a vapor which appears for a little while, and then vanishes away: instead of your saying, If the Lord wishes, we will both live, and do this or that. But now you glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil. So to him who knows how to do good, and does not do it, to him it is sin. Come now, you rich, weep and howl For your miseries which are coming on you, Your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are rusted. 5:3. Their rust will be For a witness against you, And will eat your flesh like fire. Look, the wages of the laborers, Who mowed your fields, Which by you is kept back by fraud, Cries out. And the cries of those who reaped Have entered the ears of the Lord of You have lived luxuriously on the earth, And spent wantonly. You have nourished your hearts In a day of slaughter. You condemned, you killed the doer of right. He does not resist you. So be patient, brothers, till the coming of the Lord. Look, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient over it, till it receives the early and latter rain. So you also be patient. Strengthen your hearts. For the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not complain about each other, brothers, that you may not be judged. Look, the judge is standing before the door. 5: 10. Brothers, take for an example of suffering and of patience the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Look, we call those blessed who endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how the Lord is full of pity, and merciful. . But above all, my brothers, do not swear, Neither by the heaven, Nor by the earth, Nor by any other oath : But let your yes be yes, and your no, no, Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Let him sing praise. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the Church; Anointing him with oil in the name of the And the prayer of faith will save him who is sick And the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, It will be forgiven him. 5: 16. So confess your sins to each other, And pray for each other, that you may be cured. The prayer of a good man is of much avail in its working. Elijah was a man of like passions with us, And he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: And it did not rain on the earth For three years and six months. And he prayed again; And the heaven gave rain And the earth bore her fruit. My brothers, if any among you errs from the truth, And some one converts him. Let him know, That he who converts a bad man from the error of his way Will save a soul from death, And will cover a multitude of sins. |