James - Chapter 1 | King James Version (KJV)

  • 1. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.
  • 2. My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
  • 3. Knowing {cf15I this}, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
  • 4. But let patience have {cf15I her} perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
  • 5. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all {cf15I men} liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
  • 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.
  • 7. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
  • 8. A double minded man {cf15I is} unstable in all his ways.
  • 9. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:
  • 10. But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
  • 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.
  • 12. Blessed {cf15I 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.
  • 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:
  • 14. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
  • 15. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
  • 16. Do not err, my beloved brethren.
  • 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.
  • 18. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
  • 19. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
  • 20. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
  • 21. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
  • 22. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
  • 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:
  • 24. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
  • 25. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth {cf15I therein}, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
  • 26. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion {cf15I is} vain.
  • 27. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, {cf15I and} to keep himself unspotted from the world.
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