James 4:9–17

⁴Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

¹⁰For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

¹¹For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

²⁵Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

¹³Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness.

¹GO to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

²Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

⁶⁷Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.

²¶ It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.

³Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.

⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

⁵It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.

⁶For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity.

⁶³That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.

¹⁸¶ I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God.

¹⁹Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord.

⁷How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

⁸Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.

¹⁶¶ But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.

¹²And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth:

¹³And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.

³¹My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.

¹⁵The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.

²⁵But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

⁵They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

⁶He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

¹⁰And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

¹¹In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

¹²And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;

¹³The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;

¹⁴All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

²I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?

¹³Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

⁹They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

²¹Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

⁷¹It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.

¹³⁶Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law.

⁶The Lord lifteth up the meek: he casteth the wicked down to the ground.

¹²And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

⁶Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

¹¹For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

⁶But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

²⁹When men are cast down, then thou shalt say, There is lifting up; and he shall save the humble person.

⁷He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;

⁵²He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

⁹He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.

¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

¹I WILL extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.

⁶And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.

⁹Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them also, and lift them up for ever.

¹WHEREFORE laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,

⁹Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

¹THEREFORE thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.

³⁷Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

¹JUDGE not, that ye be not judged.

²For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

¹¹Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth: evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.

¹⁰But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

¹¹For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

¹²So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

⁵Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

³¹Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

³Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

¹²Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.

¹³Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

¹¹Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things.

²⁰For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:

³Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him.

⁴Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

¹³(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

⁷What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

²²But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

²³For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

³The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

²⁵But 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.

⁴Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

¹THEREFORE thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.

²⁸And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

²²For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.

²⁵Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

⁹Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

¹³Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.

²Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?

⁵But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

²⁰Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

¹⁰¶ And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master.

¹BOAST not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

¹⁷And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

¹⁸And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

²⁰But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

³And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.

⁴And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

¹I SAID in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity.

¹²The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.

¹¹Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.

¹²Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and to morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.

¹GO to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

³⁰And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;

⁷Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

⁵And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

²⁴For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:

⁵Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.

¹⁷And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

³For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

⁷O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

¹⁰But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

¹MAN that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

²He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.

²⁵Now my days are swifter than a post: they flee away, they see no good.

²⁶They are passed away as the swift ships: as the eagle that hasteth to the prey.

⁵Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.

⁶In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

⁷For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

⁴⁷Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?

⁷But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

¹²Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent: I have cut off like a weaver my life: he will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night wilt thou make an end of me.

²¹There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.

³And this will we do, if God permit.

³⁷¶ Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

²¹But bade them farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh in Jerusalem: but I will return again unto you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus.

¹⁰Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

⁷For I will not see you now by the way; but I trust to tarry a while with you, if the Lord permit.

³²That I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed.

¹⁹But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power.

²⁵And the king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again, and shew me both it, and his habitation:

²⁶But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.

¹BOAST not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

⁶Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

⁷Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.

¹⁴Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.

⁷For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

⁸Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you.

¹⁰¶ For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.

¹⁴But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.

¹WHY boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually.

⁷How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

⁷¶ And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.

⁸Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:

⁴¹Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

¹⁷If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.

²²If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.

²¹For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

⁴⁷And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

⁴⁸But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

³²Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

¹⁷Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,

¹⁸And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law;

¹⁹And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,

²⁰An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.

²¹Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?

²²Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?

²³Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?

²⁰For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

²¹Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

¹³Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.