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1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. |
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2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; |
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3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. |
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4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. |
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5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. |
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6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. |
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7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. |
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8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. |
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9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: |
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10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. |
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11 For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it 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 ways. |
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12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. |
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13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: |
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14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. |
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15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. |
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16 Do not err, my beloved brethren. |
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17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. |
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18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. |
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19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: |
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20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. |
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21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. |
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22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. |
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23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: |
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24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. |
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25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. |
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26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. |
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27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. |
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