James 1:2–18

Faith and Wisdom

²My brothers and sisters, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, ³for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. ⁴Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. ⁵But if any of you lack wisdom, you should pray to God, who will give it to you; because God gives generously and graciously to all. ⁶But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind. ^7–8People like that, unable to make up their minds and undecided in all they do, must not think that they will receive anything from the Lord.

Poverty and Riches

⁹Those Christians who are poor must be glad when God lifts them up, ^10*and the rich Christians must be glad when God brings them down. For the rich will pass away like the flower of a wild plant. ^11*The sun rises with its blazing heat and burns the plant; its flower falls off, and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way the rich will be destroyed while they go about their business.

Testing and Tempting

¹²Happy are those who remain faithful under trials, because when they succeed in passing such a test, they will receive as their reward the life which God has promised to those who love him. ¹³If people are tempted by such trials, they must not say, “This temptation comes from God.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴But people are tempted when they are drawn away and trapped by their own evil desires. ¹⁵Then their evil desires conceive and give birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

¹⁶Do not be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters! ¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect present comes from heaven; it comes down from God, the Creator of the heavenly lights, who does not change or cause darkness by turning. ¹⁸By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures.