Chapter 1

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

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My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

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Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

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But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

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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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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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For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

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A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

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Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

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

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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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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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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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But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

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Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

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Do not err, my beloved brethren.

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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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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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Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

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For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

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

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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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For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

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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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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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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.