7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. 9Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into heaviness. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11Do not speak against one another, brethren. He that speaks against his brother, or judges his brother, speaks against the law, and judges the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12One is the lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. Who art thou that judgest thy neighbor?
13Come now, ye that say: To-day and to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend one year there, and buy and sell, and get gain; 14(whereas ye know not what belongs to the morrow; for what is your life? for ye are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away;) 15instead of saying: If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. 16But now ye glory in your boastings. All such glorying is evil. 17Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.
V. Come now, ye rich, weep, wailing for your miseries that are coming upon you. 2Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are become moth-eaten. 3Your gold and silver is rusted; and the rust of them will be a witness against you, and will eat your flesh as fire. Ye heaped up treasure, in the last days.
4Behold, the hire of the laborers who reaped your fields, which is fraudulently kept back by you, cries out; and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth[4]. 5Ye have been luxurious on the earth, and lived in pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts, in the day of slaughter. 6Ye have condemned, ye have killed the just; he does not resist you.
7Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, till it shall have received the early and latter rain. 8Be ye also patient; establish your hearts, because the coming of the Lord draws nigh. 9Murmur not against one another, brethren, that ye be not judged. Behold, the judge stands before the door. 10Take, my brethren, the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, for an example of affliction, and of patience. 11Behold, we count those happy who endure. Ye heard of the patience of Job, and saw the end of the Lord[11]; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.
12But above all things, my brethren, swear not; neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath; but let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay; that ye fall not under condemnation.
13Is any afflicted among you, let him pray. Is any cheerful, let him sing praise. 14Is 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. 15And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up; and even if he have committed sins, it will be forgiven him.
16Confess therefore your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17Elijah was a man of like nature with us; and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. 18And again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
19Brethren, if any one among you be led astray from the truth, and one convert him; 20let him know, that he who converts a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death, and will hide a multitude of sins.