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James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting.
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Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations;
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Knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience.
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And let patience have [its] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.
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But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
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But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed.
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For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord;
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a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways.
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But let the brother of low degree glory in his high estate:
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and 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 ariseth with the scorching wind, and 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 goings.
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Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which [the Lord] 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, and he himself tempteth no man:
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but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.
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Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death.
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Be not deceived, my beloved brethren.
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Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.
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Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
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Ye know [this], my beloved brethren. But 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 putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
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But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.
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For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror:
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for he beholdeth himself, and goeth away, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
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But he that looketh into the perfect law, the [law] of liberty, and [so] continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that worketh, this man shall be blessed in his doing.
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If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man’s religion is vain.
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Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep oneself unspotted from the world.