a disorderly mischief! full of deadly poison! With it we bless the Lord and Father; and with it we curse men, who come into being in the likeness of God: out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth the spring send forth from the same opening sweet water and brackish? Can a fig-tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs? Neither can salt water yield sweet.

WHO among you is wise and intelligent? Let him show, with modesty of wisdom, the results of his good manner of life. But if ye have bitter envying and rivalry in your heart, are ye not contemptuous and false in regard to the truth? This is not the wisdom that cometh down from above, but is earthly, animal, demoniacal; for where envying and rivalry are, there is disorder and every wicked deed. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily persuaded, full of compassion and good fruits, not discordant, without hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown by means of peace by those who practise peace.

WHENCE are contentions and quarrels among you? Are they not from your desires for pleasure that fight among themselves in your members? Ye desire, and possess not: ye commit murder and are envious, but can not obtain: ye quarrel and contend: ye have not, because ye do not ask: ye ask, and do not receive, because ye ask with bad intent, that ye may waste it in your pleasures. Ye vowbreakers, do ye not know that the love of the world is enmity toward God? Whoever therefore is determined to be a lover of the world, maketh himself an enemy of God. Do ye think that the Writing saith untruthfully, "He yearneth intensely for the spirit which he hath caused to dwell in us"? Yet he bestoweth greater favor; for it saith, "God setteth himself against the haughty, but he bestoweth favor upon the humble." Subject yourselves, therefore, to God; but resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.

Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners! and purify your hearts, ye double-souls! Be miserable, and lament, and weep! let your laughter be turned into lamentation, and your joy into sadness! Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

SPEAK not against one another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against law, and judgeth law; but if thou judgest law, thou art not a doer of law, but a judge. One is Lawgiver and Judge- he who hath power to save and to destroy. But thou-who art thou, that thou judgest thy neighbor?

COME now, ye that say, "To-day or to-morrow let us go to such a city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain," (since ye do not know how much of your life there will be on the morrow; for ye are like a fog, appearing for a short time and then disappearing,) instead of your saying, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and will do this or that." But now ye are boastful with your pretensions: all such boasting is wicked. To him, then, who knoweth to

do what is good, and doeth it not, to him there is sin.

Come now, ye rich men, weep and howl on account of your miseries that are coming upon you. Your wealth hath rotted; and your robes have become moth-eaten. Your gold and your silver are completely rusted; and their rust will be for testimony against you, and will consume your bodies in the last days as if ye had treasured up fire. Behold, the wages of the laborers who have harvested your fields, that are kept back by you, cry out; and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. Ye have lived in luxury on the earth, and feasted yourselves: ye have pampered your hearts as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned, ye have murdered the righteous: is he not arrayed against you?

Be patient, then, brethren, until the appearing of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waiteth for the precious fruit of the ground, and (iv. 8—v. 7.)

a

is patient over it until it hath received the early and the late rain. Be ye also patient: keep your hearts firm: for the appearing of the Lord is near. Murmur not against one another, brethren, lest ye be judged: behold, the Judge is standing before the doors. Take, brethren, for an example of suffering injury and of patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we deem those blessed, who have endured. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the result from the Lord, that the Lord is full of pity, and compassionate.

But before all things, my brethren, swear neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath; but let your Yes be Yes, and your No, No, that ye fall not under condemnation.

Is any one among you suffering ill-treatment? let him pray. Is any one joyful? let him sing to the harp. Is any one sick among you? let him call for the elders of the congregation; and let them pray for him, having anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith will restore the sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he be one who hath committed sin, it will be forgiven him.

Therefore confess your faults to one another, and pray for one another, so that ye may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man hath great power, for it is efficacious. Elijah was a man of like nature with us; and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain; and it rained not upon the land for three years and six months. And again he prayed; and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced her fruit.

My brethren, if any one among you be led astray from the truth, and one turn him back, know ye that he who turneth a sinner back from the error of his way, will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.

FIRST LETTER

OF

PETER

ETER, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the chosen ones who are sojourners of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, chosen in accordance with the foreknowledge of God the Father, in holiness of spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Joy and peace be multiplied to you.

BLESSED be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in accordance with his great mercy regenerated us unto a hope that is a living one through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, for an inheritance that is imperishable and unstained and unfading, kept in the heavens for us who are guarded by the power of God through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. And in this ye are exulting, although now for a little while from necessity ye are grieved by manifold trials, in order that the proving of your faith (which is far more precious than gold, that perisheth though tested by fire) may be found to be unto praise and glory and honor at the revealing of Jesus Christ: whom, though ye have not seen, ye love; and in whom ye have faith, though ye do not now see him: and ye exult with joy unutterable and full of glo(i. 1-8.)