The Living Bible (389 page)

James
3

Dear brothers, don’t be too eager to tell others their faults,
*
for we all make many mistakes; and when we teachers of religion, who should know better, do wrong, our punishment will be greater than it would be for others.

    
If anyone can control his tongue, it proves that he has perfect control over himself in every other way.
³
 We can make a large horse turn around and go wherever we want by means of a small bit in his mouth.
⁴
 And a tiny rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot wants it to go, even though the winds are strong.

    
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 So also the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A great forest can be set on fire by one tiny spark.
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 And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness, and poisons every part of the body. And the tongue is set on fire by hell itself and can turn our whole lives into a blazing flame of destruction and disaster.

    
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 Men have trained, or can train, every kind of animal or bird that lives and every kind of reptile and fish,
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 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is always ready to pour out its deadly poison.
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 Sometimes it praises our heavenly Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against men who are made like God.
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 And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Dear brothers, surely this is not right!
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 Does a spring of water bubble out first with fresh water and then with bitter water?
¹²
 Can you pick olives from a fig tree, or figs from a grape vine? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty pool.

    
¹³
 If you are wise, live a life of steady goodness so that only good deeds will pour forth. And if you don’t brag about them, then you will be truly wise!
¹⁴
 And by all means don’t brag about being wise and good if you are bitter and jealous and selfish; that is the worst sort of lie.
¹⁵
 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, inspired by the devil.
¹⁶
 For wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition, there will be disorder and every other kind of evil.

    
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 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straightforward and sincere.
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 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.

James
4

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it because there is a whole army of evil desires within you?
²
 You want what you don’t have, so you kill to get it. You long for what others have, and can’t afford it, so you start a fight to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it.
³
 And even when you do ask you don’t get it because your whole aim is wrong—you want only what will give
you
pleasure.

    
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 You are like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband’s enemies. Don’t you realize that making friends with God’s enemies—the evil pleasures of this world—makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy the evil pleasure of the unsaved world, you cannot also be a friend of God.
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 Or what do you think the Scripture means when it says that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, watches over us with tender jealousy?
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 But he gives us more and more strength to stand against all such evil longings. As the Scripture says, God gives strength to the humble but sets himself against the proud and haughty.

    
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 So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
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 And when you draw close to God, God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and let your hearts be filled with God alone to make them pure and true to him.
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 Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and sincere grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
¹⁰
 Then when you realize your worthlessness before the Lord, he will lift you up, encourage and help you.

    
¹¹
 Don’t criticize and speak evil about each other, dear brothers. If you do, you will be fighting against God’s law of loving one another, declaring it is wrong. But your job is not to decide whether this law is right or wrong, but to obey it.
¹²
 Only he who made the law can rightly judge among us. He alone decides to save us or destroy. So what right do you have to judge or criticize others?

    
¹³
 Look here, you people who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to such and such a town, stay there a year, and open up a profitable business.”
¹⁴
 How do you know what is going to happen tomorrow? For the length of your lives is as uncertain as the morning fog—now you see it; soon it is gone.
¹⁵
 What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we shall live and do this or that.”
¹⁶
 Otherwise you will be bragging about your own plans, and such self-confidence never pleases God.

    
¹⁷
 Remember, too, that knowing what is right to do and then not doing it is sin.

James
5

Look here, you rich men, now is the time to cry and groan with anguished grief because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you.
²
 Your wealth is even now rotting away, and your fine clothes are becoming mere moth-eaten rags.
³
 The value of your gold and silver is dropping fast, yet it will stand as evidence against you and eat your flesh like fire. That is what you have stored up for yourselves to receive on that coming day of judgment.
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 For listen! Hear the cries of the field workers whom you have cheated of their pay. Their cries have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts.

    
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 You have spent your years here on earth having fun, satisfying your every whim, and now your fat hearts are ready for the slaughter.
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 You have condemned and killed good men who had no power to defend themselves against you.

    
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 Now as for you, dear brothers who are waiting for the Lord’s return, be patient, like a farmer who waits until the autumn for his precious harvest to ripen.
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 Yes, be patient. And take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.

    
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 Don’t grumble about each other, brothers. Are you yourselves above criticism? For see! The great Judge is coming. He is almost here. Let him do whatever criticizing must be done.
*

    
¹⁰
 For examples of patience in suffering, look at the Lord’s prophets.
¹¹
 We know how happy they are now because they stayed true to him then, even though they suffered greatly for it. Job is an example of a man who continued to trust the Lord in sorrow; from his experiences we can see how the Lord’s plan finally ended in good, for he is full of tenderness and mercy.

    
¹²
 But most of all, dear brothers, do not swear either by heaven or earth or anything else; just say a simple yes or no so that you will not sin and be condemned for it.

    
¹³
 Is anyone among you suffering? He should keep on praying about it. And those who have reason to be thankful should continually be singing praises to the Lord.

    
¹⁴
 Is anyone sick? He should call for the elders of the church and they should pray over him and pour a little oil upon him, calling on the Lord to heal him.
¹⁵
 And their prayer, if offered in faith, will heal him, for the Lord will make him well; and if his sickness was caused by some sin, the Lord will forgive him.

    
¹⁶
 Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results.
¹⁷
 Elijah was as completely human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for the next three and a half years!
¹⁸
 Then he prayed again, this time that it
would
rain, and down it poured, and the grass turned green and the gardens began to grow again.

    
¹⁹
 Dear brothers, if anyone has slipped away from God and no longer trusts the Lord and someone helps him understand the Truth again,
²⁰
 that person who brings him back to God will have saved a wandering soul from death, bringing about the forgiveness of his many sins.

Sincerely, James