| Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. | 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. |
| For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. | Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. |
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| If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. | 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. |
| But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. | 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. |
| Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. | Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. |
| God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. | 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. |
| And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. | 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. |
| He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession. | Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. |
| Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. | Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. |
| So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. | Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. |
| But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. | But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. |
| But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. | 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. |
| If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. | 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. |
| Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. | 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. |
| So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. | Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. |
| You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. | Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. |
| Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way. | For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. |
| And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right! | Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. |
| If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. | Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. |
| For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. | For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. |
| But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. | But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. |
| And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. | And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. |
| You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. | Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. |
| You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. | Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. |
| So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. | Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. |
