desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. [1]
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? [2]
6 But he giveth more grace. Therefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.
7 Submit 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, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11 Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?
13 Come now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
14 Though ye know not what shall be to morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. [3]
15 Instead of that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
16 But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
CHAP. 5.
Come now, ye rich men, weep and wail for your miseries that shall come upon you .
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is rusted; and its rust shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped up treasure for the last days.
4 Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them who have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts. [4]
5 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6 Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.
7 Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receiveth the early and the latter rain. [5]
8 Be ye also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth near.
9 Murmur not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. [6]
10 Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.
11 Behold, we count them happy who endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12 But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
13 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any cheerful? let him sing psalms.
14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:
15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he hath committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much.
17 Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. [7] [8]
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.
19 Brethren, if any one of you should err from the truth, and one should convert him;
20 Let him know, that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
