The Power of Words, the Wisdom of Humility, and the Patience of Faith
World English Bible Classic (WEB)
James 3
1 Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment.
2 For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.
3 Indeed, we put bits into the horses’ mouths so that they may obey us, and we guide their whole body.
4 Behold, the ships also, though they are so big and are driven by fierce winds, are yet turned about by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires.
5 So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest!
6 And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna.
7 For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and sea creature is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind;
8 but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the image of God.
10 Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
11 Does a spring send out from the same opening fresh and bitter water?
12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, yield olives, or a vine figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh water.
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good conduct that his deeds are done in the gentleness of wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and don’t lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic.
16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
James 4
1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
2 You lust, and don’t have. You kill, covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and wage war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask.
3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.
4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Be subject 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, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be afflicted, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges 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.
12 Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”
14 Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.
17 To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.
James 5
1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.
2 Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten.
3 Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a witness against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.
4 Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.
5 You have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
6 You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.
7 Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain.
8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
9 Don’t grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door.
10 Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
11 Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
12 But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes,” and your “no,” “no,” so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy.
13 Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises.
14 Is any among you sick? Let him call for 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 will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.
18 He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.
19 Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back,
20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Scripture: World English Bible Classic (WEB), a public-domain translation. Available for free copying and sharing at eBible.org.
