James 1 (ASV) - Holy Bible

¹James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting.

²Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations;

³Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience.

⁴And let patience have `its' perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.

⁵But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

⁶But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.

⁷For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord;

⁸a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways.

⁹But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate:

¹⁰and the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

¹¹For the sun ariseth with the scorching wind, and withereth the grass: and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his goings.

¹²Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which `the Lord' promised to them that love him.

¹³Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man:

¹⁴but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.

¹⁵Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.

¹⁶Be not deceived, my beloved brethren.

¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.

¹⁸Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

¹⁹Ye know `this', my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

²⁰for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

²¹Wherefore putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

²²But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.

²³For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror:

²⁴for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

²⁵But he that looketh into the perfect law, the `law' of liberty, and `so' continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing.

²⁶If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man's religion is vain.

²⁷Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, `and' to keep oneself unspotted from the world.