James 2:4

²⁴Don’t judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”

¹⁹He doesn’t respect the persons of princes, nor respect the rich more than the poor, for they all are the work of his hands.

¹“Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. ²For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. ³Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye? ⁴Or how will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and behold, the beam is in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.

⁹“Therefore I have also made you contemptible and wicked before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law.

¹Do you indeed speak righteousness, silent ones? Do you judge blamelessly, you sons of men?

²“How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked?” Selah.

¹¹Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

¹James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,^[+] to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings.

²Count it all joy, my brothers,^[+] when you fall into various temptations, ³knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

⁵But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. ⁶But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. ⁷For that man shouldn’t think that he will receive anything from the Lord. ⁸He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

⁹Let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position; ¹⁰and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away. ¹¹For the sun arises with the scorching wind and withers the grass; and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So the rich man will also fade away in his pursuits.

¹²Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to those who love him.

¹³Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. ¹⁴But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. ¹⁵Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death. ¹⁶Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers. ¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow. ¹⁸Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

¹⁹So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; ²⁰for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God. ²¹Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

^22[+] But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. ²³For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; ²⁴for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. ²⁵But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.

²⁶If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless. ²⁷Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

²⁷“Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me.

³¹For he will stand at the right hand of the needy, to save him from those who judge his soul.