Letters to the Churches

My brothers, can a fig tree grow olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good conduct, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

But if you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth.

Such wisdom does not come from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every evil practice.

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peace-loving, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere.

Peacemakers who sow in peace reap the fruit of righteousness.

What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?

You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.

And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.

You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.

Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy?

But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. And if you judge the law, you are not a practitioner of the law, but a judge of it.

There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”

You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”

As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.

Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.

Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you.