in us long enviously? But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Make your hands clean, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be sorrowful and mourn and lament. Let your laughter be turned into grief and your gladness into gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.

Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against his brother speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. One is the Lawgiver and Judge he who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you, to judge your neighbor?

Come, now, you who say, "To-day or to-morrow we will go to such a city and spend a year and do business and make money," though you do not know what your life will be like on the morrow. For you are a vapor that appears for a little while and then disappears. You should rather say, "If the Lord wills it, we shall live and do this or that." But now you glory in bragging. All such glorying is evil. If any one, then, knows how to do good and is not doing it, he is committing sin.

V

COME, now, you rich men, wail and lament over the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver are rusted over and the rust on them will be an evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasures in the last days. See, the wages of the laborers who reaped your fields, fraudulently kept back by you, call aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have come into the ears of the Lord of armies. You have lived luxuriously in the land and have given yourselves up to pleasure. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have murdered, the righteous; he does not resist you.

Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the ground

and is patient over it until he receives the early and the late rains. You too must be patient. Keep your hearts steadfast, for the coming of the Lord is near. Do not fret at one another, brethren, and then you will not be judged. The Judge is standing before your doors. Take, brethren, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of patience in suffering evil. We call them blessed because they endured. You have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord's dealings with him, that the Lord is very tender and compassionate.

Above all things, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by the earth or by any other oath. Let your yes be yes and your no be no, that you may not fall under condemnation.

Is any one of you suffering hardship? Let him pray. Is any one cheerful? Let him sing with the harp. Is any one of you sick? Let him call in the elders of the church and let them pray over him and anoint him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins they will be forgiven him.

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another in order to be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man has great power. Elijah was a man of the same weaknesses as ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the land brought forth its fruits.

My brethren, if one of you strays from the truth and any one brings him back, I wish you to know that he who brings back a sinner from his wanderings will save his soul from death and will hide a host of sins.

THE FIRST LETTER OF PETER

I

PETER, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the Chosen Ones of the scattered Jews in foreign lands who are living in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia-chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and made holy by the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood: Grace be to you and peace be multiplied.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead a birth into an inheritance immortal, unstained and unfading, kept in heaven for you who are guarded by the power of God through faith for the salvation which is ready to be revealed on the last day. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you are sorrowful in trials of many kinds, so that your tested faith, much more precious than gold that perishes though tested by fire, may be found to your praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed, whom you love though you have not seen him; in whom you have faith though now you do not see him, and you rejoice with unspeakable and glorious joy while you receive the reward of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Regarding this salvation the prophets who foretold the grace that was to come to you inquired and searched, trying to find out what time, or what sort of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them was disclosing when it witnessed beforehand regarding the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who have told you the good news by the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven things which angels

earnestly long to look into.

Therefore brace up your minds, be calm and set your hope

perfectly on the grace that is to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not shape your lives by the passions that ruled you in the former days of ignorance, but, like the Holy One who has called you, become yourselves holy in all your way of life, for it is written, "You shall be holy because I am holy." And if you call upon him as Father who impartially judges by each one's work, live out the time of your sojourn here in reverence, for you know that you were not ransomed with perishable things, silver or gold, from your purposeless life handed down from your forefathers, but by precious blood, as of a faultless, spotless lamb, the blood of Christ, who was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of time for your sake who through him are faithful to God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Now that you have made your souls holy by obedience to the truth for sincere brotherly love, you must love one another steadily from your hearts, for you have been reborn, not from mortal seed but from immortal by the living and enduring word of God. For "All flesh is like grass and all its glory is like the flower of the grass; the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever." And this is the word of good news that has been brought to you.

II

THEN lay aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and every kind of slander, and, like new-born babes, long for the reasonable pure milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord is kind. Coming to him, a living stone, rejected by men but with the Lord chosen and precious, you also as living stones are built up, a spiritual house, and become a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is contained in Scripture, "See, I am laying in Zion a chosen stone, an honored corner stone. He who has faith in him will not be put to shame." To you who have faith is the "honor," but to the unbelieving "the stone which the builders rejected — that has become the corner stone, a stone for the foot to strike, a

rock to stumble over." Their feet strike the message because of their unbelief, and to this they were destined.

But you are a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that you may proclaim the virtues of him who called you from darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God: once you had not found compassion, but now you have found compassion.

Beloved, I beg you, as foreigners and resident aliens, to shun the passions of the flesh which war against the soul. Keep your daily life among the Gentiles honorable, so that, although they talk against you as if you were wrongdoers, they may, from your noble deeds that they see, glorify God on the day of inspection.

Be submissive to every human institution for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors as those sent by him for the punishment of wrongdoers and the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God - that by doing good we shall silence the ignorance of thoughtless men. Live as free men, yet not using freedom as a cloak for wickedness, but as God's slaves. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, reverence God, honor the king.

Household servants, be submissive with all reverence to your lords, not only to the good and fair, but also to the surly. For this is grace if for conscience toward God any one bears pain, suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if when you sin and are struck with the fist you are patient? But if though doing well, you suffer and are patient, that is grace in God's sight. For to this you were called, because Christ too suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his footsteps. He had done no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled he did not revile back; he suffered, but made no threat; he committed himself to him who judges justly. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we might die to sins and live to righteousness. For you were going astray like sheep, but have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.