Warning to the Rich

51 Go to now, ye rich, weep, howling over your miseries that [are] coming upon [you]. 2 Your wealth is become rotten, and your garments moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver is eaten away, and their canker shall be for a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have heaped up treasure in [the] last days. 4 Behold, the wages of your labourers, who have harvested your fields, wrongfully kept back by you, cry, and the cries of those that have reaped are entered into the ears of [the] Lord of sabaoth. 5 Ye have lived luxuriously on the earth and indulged yourselves; ye have nourished your hearts [as] in a day of slaughter; 6 ye have condemned, ye have killed the just; he does not resist you.

Patience and Prayer

7 Have patience, therefore, brethren, till the coming of the Lord. Behold, the labourer awaits the precious fruit of the earth, having patience for it until it receive [the] early and [the] latter rain. 8 Ye also have patience: stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is drawn nigh. 9 Complain not one against another, brethren, that ye be not judged. Behold, the judge stands before the door. 10 Take [as] an example, brethren, of suffering and having patience, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of [the] Lord. 11 Behold, we call them blessed who have endured. Ye have heard of the endurance of Job, and seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is full of tender compassion and pitiful.

12 But before 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 do not fall under judgment. 13 Does any one among you suffer evil? let him pray. Is any happy? let him sing psalms. 14 Is any sick among you? let him call to [him] the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of [the] Lord; 15 and the prayer of faith shall heal the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be one who has committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. 16 Confess therefore your offences to one another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. [The] fervent supplication of the righteous [man] has much power. 17 Elias was a man of like passions to us, and he prayed with prayer that it should not rain; and it did not rain upon the earth three years and six months; 18 and again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth caused its fruit to spring forth. 19 My brethren, if any one among you err from the truth, and one bring him back, 20 let him know that he that brings back a sinner from [the] error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall cover a multitude of sins.

The Tongue

31 Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive greater judgment. 2 For we all often offend. If any one offend not in word, he [is] a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body too. 3 Behold, we put the bits in the mouths of the horses, that they may obey us, and we turn round their whole bodies. 4 Behold also the ships, which are so great, and driven by violent winds, are turned about by a very small rudder, wherever the pleasure of the helmsman will. 5 Thus also the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. See how little a fire, how large a wood it kindles! 6 and the tongue [is] fire, the world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set in our members, the defiler of the whole body, and which sets fire to the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. 7 For every species both of beasts and of birds, both of creeping things and of sea animals, is tamed and has been tamed by the human species; 8 but the tongue can no one among men tame; [it is] an unsettled evil, full of death-bringing poison. 9 Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men made after [the] likeness of God. 10 Out of the same mouth goes forth blessing and cursing. It is not right, my brethren, that these things should be thus. 11 Does the fountain, out of the same opening, pour forth sweet and bitter? 12 Can, my brethren, a fig produce olives, or a vine figs? Neither [can] salt [water] make sweet water.

The Wisdom from Above

13 Who [is] wise and understanding among you; let him shew out of a good conversation his works in meekness of wisdom; 14 but if ye have bitter emulation and strife in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom which comes down from above, but earthly, natural, devilish. 16 For where emulation and strife [are], there [is] disorder and every evil thing. 17 But the wisdom from above first is pure, then peaceful, gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruits, unquestioning, unfeigned. 18 But [the] fruit of righteousness in peace is sown for them that make peace.