Chapter 5

¹Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl in your miseries, which shall come upon you. ²Your riches are corrupted: and your garments are motheaten. ³Your gold and silver is cankered: and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days. ⁴Behold the hire of the labourers, who have reaped down your fields, which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth: and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. ⁵You have feasted upon earth: and in riotousness you have nourished your hearts, in the day of slaughter. ⁶You have condemned and put to death the Just One, and he resisted you not. ⁷Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth: patiently bearing till he receive the early and latter rain. ⁸Be you therefore also patient, and strengthen your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand. ⁹Grudge not, brethren, one against another, that you may not be judged. Behold the judge standeth before the door. ¹⁰Take, my brethren, for an example of suffering evil, of labour and patience, the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord. ¹¹Behold, we account them blessed who have endured. You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is merciful and compassionate. ¹²But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech be, yea, yea: no, no: that you fall not under judgment. ¹³Is any of you sad? Let him pray. Is he cheerful in mind? Let him sing. ¹⁴Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man: and the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him. ¹⁶Confess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved. For the continual prayer of a just man availeth much. ¹⁷Elias was a man passible like unto us: and with prayer he prayed that it might not rain upon the earth, and it rained not for three years and six months. ¹⁸And he prayed again: and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. ¹⁹My brethren, if any of you err from the truth, and one convert him: ²⁰He must know that he who causeth a sinner to be converted from the error of his way, shall save his soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.