A Greeting from James
(Jude 1:1–2)

1James, the servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes who are in the Dispersion, greeting.

Rejoicing in Trials
(Philippians 1:12–20)

2Count it all joy, my brethren, when you may fall into manifold temptations. 3Knowing that the trial of your faith works out endurance. 4But let endurance have its perfect work, in order that you may be perfect and whole in every part, lacking in nothing.

5But if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all cheerfully and upbraids none; and it will be given unto him. 6But let him ask in faith, doubting as to nothing; for he that doubts is like unto a wave of the sea driven by the winds and tossed by the tempest. 7For let not that man think that he will receive anything from the Lord, 8the double-minded man, the most unstable in all his ways.

9But let the humble brother boast in his exaltation: 10and the rich man, in his humility: because as the flower of the grass he will pass away. 11For the sun with a scorching wind has risen, and dried up the grass, and its flower fell off, and the beauty of its countenance perished: so indeed the rich man will pass away in his ways.

12Happy is the man who endures temptation: because, being proved, he will receive a crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him with divine love.

Good and Perfect Gifts

13Let no one being tempted say, I am tempted from God. For God can not be tempted with evils, and he tempts no one: 14but each one is tempted by his own lusts, being drawn out, and enticed. 15Then the lust, conceiving, brings forth sin; and sin, having been perfected, produces death. 16Be not deceived, my beloved brethren. 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of change. 18Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be some first fruit of his creations.

Hearing and Doing

19Know, my beloved brethren; but let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow toward wrath: 20for the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God. 21Therefore having laid aside all filthiness and excess of evil, receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23For if any one is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror: 24for he recognized himself, and has gone away, and immediately forgot what kind he was. 25But the one having looked into the perfect law which is the law of liberty, and having remained in it, not being a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, he shall be happy in his work.

26But if any one seems to be religious, bridling not his own tongue, but deceiving his own heart, the religion of that man is vain. 27Pure religion and undefiled with God even the Father is this, to relieve the orphans and widows in their affliction, and keep himself unspotted from the world.