Letters to the Churches

is a fig-tree able, my brethren, olives to make? or a vine figs? so no fountain salt and sweet water is able to make.

Who is wise and intelligent among you? let him shew out of the good behaviour his works in meekness of wisdom,

and if bitter zeal ye have, and rivalry in your heart, glory not, nor lie against the truth;

this wisdom is not descending from above, but earthly, physical, demon-like,

for where zeal and rivalry are , there is insurrection and every evil matter;

and the wisdom from above, first, indeed, is pure, then peaceable, gentle, easily entreated, full of kindness and good fruits, uncontentious, and unhypocritical: --

and the fruit of the righteousness in peace is sown to those making peace.

Whence are wars and fightings among you? not thence--out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members?

ye desire, and ye have not; ye murder, and are zealous, and are not able to attain; ye fight and war, and ye have not, because of your not asking;

ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend it .

Adulterers and adulteresses! have ye not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever, then, may counsel to be a friend of the world, an enemy of God he is set.

Do ye think that emptily the Writing saith, `To envy earnestly desireth the spirit that did dwell in us,'

and greater grace he doth give, wherefore he saith, `God against proud ones doth set Himself up, and to lowly ones He doth give grace?'

be subject, then, to God; stand up against the devil, and he will flee from you;

draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you; cleanse hands, ye sinners! and purify hearts, ye two-souled!

be exceeding afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter to mourning be turned, and the joy to heaviness;

be made low before the Lord, and He shall exalt you.

Speak not one against another, brethren; he who is speaking against a brother, and is judging his brother, doth speak against law, and doth judge law, and if law thou dost judge, thou art not a doer of law but a judge;

one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; thou--who art thou that dost judge the other?

Go, now, ye who are saying, `To-day and to-morrow we will go on to such a city, and will pass there one year, and traffic, and make gain;'

who do not know the thing of the morrow; for what is your life? for it is a vapour that is appearing for a little, and then is vanishing;

instead of your saying, `If the Lord may will, we shall live, and do this or that;'

and now ye glory in your pride; all such glorying is evil;

to him, then, knowing to do good, and not doing, sin it is to him.

Go, now, ye rich! weep, howling over your miseries that are coming upon you ;