James 3-5

Darby Translation

3 Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive greater judgment.

² For we all often offend. If any one offend not in word, *he* [is] a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body too.

³ Behold, we put the bits in the mouths of the horses, that they may obey us, and we turn round their whole bodies.

⁴ Behold also the ships, which are so great, and driven by violent winds, are turned about by a very small rudder, wherever the pleasure of the helmsman will.

⁵ Thus also the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. See how little a fire, how large a wood it kindles!

⁶ and the tongue [is] fire, the world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set in our members, the defiler of the whole body, and which sets fire to the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell.

⁷ For every species both of beasts and of birds, both of creeping things and of sea animals, is tamed and has been tamed by the human species;

⁸ but the tongue can no one among men tame; [it is] an unsettled evil, full of death-bringing poison.

⁹ Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men made after [the] likeness of God.

¹⁰ Out of the same mouth goes forth blessing and cursing. It is not right, my brethren, that these things should be thus.

¹¹ Does the fountain, out of the same opening, pour forth sweet and bitter?

¹² Can, my brethren, a fig produce olives, or a vine figs? Neither [can] salt [water] make sweet water.

¹³ Who [is] wise and understanding among you; let him shew out of a good conversation his works in meekness of wisdom;

¹⁴ but if ye have bitter emulation and strife in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.

¹⁵ This is not the wisdom which comes down from above, but earthly, natural, devilish.

¹⁶ For where emulation and strife [are], there [is] disorder and every evil thing.

¹⁷ But the wisdom from above first is pure, then peaceful, gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruits, unquestioning, unfeigned.

¹⁸ But [the] fruit of righteousness in peace is sown for them that make peace.

4 Whence [come] wars and whence fightings among you? [Is it] not thence,—from your pleasures, which war in your members?

² Ye lust and have not: ye kill and are full of envy, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; ye have not because ye ask not.

³ Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask evilly, that ye may consume [it] in your pleasures.

⁴ Adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore is minded to be [the] friend of the world is constituted enemy of God.

⁵ Think ye that the scripture speaks in vain? Does the Spirit which has taken his abode in us desire enviously?

⁶ But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says, God sets himself against [the] proud, but gives grace to [the] lowly.

⁷ Subject yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse [your] hands, sinners, and purify [your] hearts, ye double-minded.

⁹ Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness.

¹⁰ Humble yourselves before [the] Lord, and he shall exalt you.

¹¹ Speak not against one another, brethren. He that speaks against [his] brother, or judges his brother, speaks against [the] law and judges [the] law. But if thou judgest [the] law, thou art not doer of [the] law, but judge.

¹² One is the lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy: but who art *thou* who judgest thy neighbour?

¹³ Go to now, ye who say, To-day or to-morrow will we go into such a city and spend a year there, and traffic and make gain,

¹⁴ ye who do not know what will be on the morrow, ([for] what [is] your life? It is even a vapour, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing,)

¹⁵ instead of your saying, If the Lord should [so] will and we should live, we will also do this or that.

¹⁶ But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil.

¹⁷ To him therefore who knows how to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.

5 Go to now, ye rich, weep, howling over your miseries that [are] coming upon [you].

² Your wealth is become rotten, and your garments moth-eaten.

³ Your gold and silver is eaten away, and their canker shall be for a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have heaped up treasure in [the] last days.

⁴ Behold, the wages of your labourers, who have harvested your fields, wrongfully kept back by you, cry, and the cries of those that have reaped are entered into the ears of [the] Lord of sabaoth.

⁵ Ye have lived luxuriously on the earth and indulged yourselves; ye have nourished your hearts [as] in a day of slaughter;

⁶ ye have condemned, ye have killed the just; he does not resist you.

⁷ Have patience, therefore, brethren, till the coming of the Lord. Behold, the labourer awaits the precious fruit of the earth, having patience for it until it receive [the] early and [the] latter rain.

⁸ *Ye* also have patience: stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is drawn nigh.

⁹ Complain not one against another, brethren, that ye be not judged. Behold, the judge stands before the door.

¹⁰ Take [as] an example, brethren, of suffering and having patience, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of [the] Lord.

¹¹ Behold, we call them blessed who have endured. Ye have heard of the endurance of Job, and seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is full of tender compassion and pitiful.

¹² But before all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath; but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay, that ye do not fall under judgment.

¹³ Does any one among you suffer evil? let him pray. Is any happy? let him sing psalms.

¹⁴ Is any sick among you? let him call to [him] the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of [the] Lord;

¹⁵ and the prayer of faith shall heal the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be one who has committed sins, it shall be forgiven him.

¹⁶ Confess therefore your offences to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. [The] fervent supplication of the righteous [man] has much power.

¹⁷ Elias was a man of like passions to us, and he prayed with prayer that it should not rain; and it did not rain upon the earth three years and six months;

¹⁸ and again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth caused its fruit to spring forth.

¹⁹ My brethren, if any one among you err from the truth, and one bring him back,

²⁰ let him know that he that brings back a sinner from [the] error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall cover a multitude of sins.