Bible

James 1 (AMP)

Topics in Book | Outline of Book | Facts About Book | Commentary | Parallel Verse

NET | ESV | KJV | ASV | RSV | Good News | CEV | Basic | MSG | Spanish | French

Previous Chapter | Browse | Next Chapter

¹ JAMES, A servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes scattered abroad : Greetings (rejoice)! ² Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. ³ Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. ⁴ But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfectly and fully developed , lacking in nothing. ⁵ If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him. ⁶ Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering (no hesitating, no doubting). For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything from the Lord, ⁸ a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything . ⁹ Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his elevation , ¹⁰ And the rich in being humbled , because like the flower of the grass he will pass away. ¹¹ For the sun comes up with a scorching heat and parches the grass; its flower falls off and its beauty fades away. Even so will the rich man wither and die in the midst of his pursuits. ¹² Blessed (happy, to be envied) is the man who is patient under trial and stands up under temptation, for when he has stood the test and been approved, he will receive crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him. ¹³ Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by evil and He Himself tempts no one. ¹⁴ But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions). ¹⁵ Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death. ¹⁶ Do not be misled, my beloved brethren. ¹⁷ Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all light, in Whom there can be no variation or shadow cast by His turning . ¹⁸ And it was of His own will that He gave us birth by Word of Truth, so that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures . ¹⁹ Understand , my beloved brethren. Let every man be quick to hear , slow to speak, slow to take offense and to get angry. ²⁰ For man's anger does not promote the righteousness God . ²¹ So get rid of all uncleanness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness, and in a humble (gentle, modest) spirit receive and welcome the Word which implanted and rooted contains the power to save your souls. ²² But be doers of the Word , and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves . ²³ For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his natural face in a mirror; ²⁴ For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But he who looks carefully into the faultless law, the of liberty, and is faithful to it and perseveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgets but an active doer , he shall be blessed in his doing (his life of obedience). ²⁶ If anyone thinks himself to be religious (piously observant of the external duties of his faith) and does not bridle his tongue but deludes his own heart, this person's religious service is worthless (futile, barren). ²⁷ External religious worship that is pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit and help and care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and need, and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world.