Open English Translation YAC (JAM) Chapter 1

2 Be cheerful my fellow believers, when you face a range of difficult situations, 3 knowing that you will learn endurance as your faith is tested. 4 Let that endurance do its perfect work so that you all might become perfect and mature—not lacking anything.

5 If anyone of you is lacking wisdom, then it should be requested from God who gives it generously and without disparagement, and so it will be given to you, 6 but the person who’s asking should demonstrate their faith and not be doubting. That’s because a person who doubts is like a wave on the sea that’s just blown and tossed around 7 and a person like that shouldn’t expect to get anything from the master 8 because that person is doubled-minded, and everything they attempt ends up in difficulty.

9 Those of humbler means can boast about their greatness 10 whereas the wealthy can boast about their weakness because they’ll pass away just like the daisies in the grass.[ref] 11 When the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass, the flowers will drop and lose all their beauty. So too for rich people who’ll fade away right in the middle of all their projects.

12 Any person who’s enduring testing circumstances is fortunate, because once they’ve passed the test, they’ll receive a crown of life that Yeshua promised to those who love him. 13 No one should say ‘It’s God tempting me’ when they’re being tempted, because God can’t be tempted to do evil and he doesn’t tempt others, 14 but rather they’re being tempted by their own lusts. They’re being drawn away and enticed into what they know is wrong, 15 and after the desire is conceived it leads to sin, and once the sin is concluded it leads to death.

16 Don’t be led astray, my dear brothers and sisters. 17 Every gift that’s good and perfect comes from heaven. It comes down from the father of lights, none of which are changing or casting moving shadows. 18 Once he had decided it, he created us by his spoken commands so that we’d become a kind of special first ‘harvest’ out of all of his creatures.

19 So my dear brothers and sisters, note this: Everyone should be quick to listen but slow to speak, and should be slow to get angry 20 because when people get very angry, it doesn’t lead to the good behaviour that God expects. 21 So discard all moral filth and the evil that’s plentiful, and humbly accept the message that’s implanted in you all and which is capable of saving your souls.

22 Don’t delude yourselves by just listening to the message, but put it into practice in your daily lives. 23 Anyone who is just a listener of the message and does nothing with it is like someone who looks at their face in a mirror 24 but goes away after having a look and then immediately forgets what they looked like. 25 However the person who investigates the perfect law that gives freedom, and then sticks with it, not being just an observer that forgets about it but rather a person who puts it into practice, this person will prosper in whatever they do.

26 If anyone supposes that they’re religious but doesn’t guard what comes out of their mouth, then that person’s religion is only skin deep and hasn’t affected their heart. 27 A person who wants to truly serve our God and father with a pure heart would be visiting orphans and widows in their difficulties and staying unstained by worldly ideas.