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1 I, James, serve God and the Lord Jesus the Messiah. I am writing this letter to you who believe in Jesus and are living in various parts of the Roman Empire. I greet you all.
2 My fellow believers, consider it something to rejoice over greatly when you experience various kinds of hardships. 3 Understand that as you trust God in hardships, this helps you to become a stronger person. 4 Endure hardships to their very end, so that you may follow the Messiah in every way. Then you will not fail to do well.
5 If anyone of you needs to know what to do, let him ask God, and God will tell him. God gives generously to everyone. God does not scold people who ask for things. 6 But when you pray to God, you must trust him to answer you. Do not doubt that he will answer and help you. People who doubt God first decide to do one thing, but then they want to do something else. They never settle on a single course of action. 7 Indeed, people who doubt should not think that God the Lord will give them what they ask for so uncertainly. 8 People like this can never decide what to do. They make a plan, but then they do not follow it.
9 Believers who do not have much money should be glad, because God has honored them. 10 But believers who have a lot of money should be glad that God has humbled them by showing them that their wealth does not make them better than other people. After all, like wildflowers that bloom for only a short time and then wither, rich believers will die like anyone else. 11 A wildflower only lasts a short time because when the sun rises, its scorching heat dries out the plants so that their flowers fall off. They are no longer beautiful. Like the flower that dies, rich people will die while they are trying to make money.
12 God honors those who remain faithful to him in difficult circumstances. Indeed, God will reward them by having them live forever. That is what God has promised to do for all who love him.
13 When we are tempted to sin, we must not think it is God who is tempting us. No, no one can persuade God to do evil, and God never tries to persuade anyone to do evil. 14 But people want to do evil because of their own desires. When they do, it is just as if they had fallen into a trap. 15 Then, because they have desired to do evil things, they begin to do them, and eventually they do them habitually. If they do not turn away from their sinful behavior, they will be separated from God forever.
16 My fellow believers whom I love, stop deceiving yourselves. 17 Every truly good and perfect gift comes from God the Father, who is in heaven. He created the sun, moon, and stars. But God does not change the way shadows change, appearing and disappearing. God never changes. He is always good! 18 God became our spiritual father when we trusted in his true message. That was what he wanted to do. So now believers in Jesus have become the first people to experience the kind of relationship with God that many more people will have in the future.
19 My fellow believers whom I love, I want you to know that every one of you should listen patiently to what others have to say. You should speak your own thoughts carefully. You should control your anger, 20 because when we get angry, we cannot do the good things that God wants us to do.
21 So stop doing all kinds of evil. Without resisting proudly, do what God has told you to do. God will help you to remember and understand it. This will show that you belong to God. 22 It is important to what God commands, do not just listen to it. People who only listen to it and do not obey it are fooling themselves into thinking that this will save them. 23 Now some people hear God’s message, but they do not do what it says. Those people are like someone who looks at his face in a mirror. 24 Although he looks at himself, he goes away from the mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But other people consider God’s message carefully. It is perfect and it enables people to do voluntarily what God wants them to do. If these people remember what they have heard and continue to do what God tells them to do, then God will bless them because of what they do.
26 Some people think that they worship God properly, but they say bad things. Those people are wrong in what they are thinking. God is not impressed with our worship activities if we continually say bad things. 27 One of the things that God has told us to do is to take care of orphans and widows who suffer hardship. People who do that truly worship God, who is our Father. People are also truly worshiping God if they do not think or act immorally like others who do not obey God. God approves of people who do these things.