BOOK 59 OF 66 · GENERAL EPISTLES · KING JAMES BIBLE

James 5

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James 5 Overview

James warns rich oppressors whose hoarded wealth and withheld wages cry out for judgment, then calls suffering believers to patience until the Lord’s coming. He points to prophets and Job as examples, commands truthful speech, prayer in suffering and sickness, confession of faults, and restoration of a brother who wanders from the truth.

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20Verses

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Before you read James 5

Coming from

James traces wars and conflicts to unchecked desires, rebukes friendship with the world, and calls believers to submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, humble themselves, and stop speaking evil of one another. He also corrects arrogant business planning that ignores life’s brevity and God’s will.

In this chapter

Leads into

The canonical sequence continues into 1 Peter.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The condemnation targets oppressive rich people, not wealth by itself.

The final ‘save a soul from death’ can naturally describe rescuing a wandering believer from destructive consequences of sin; the context calls him ‘a brother’ and does not require loss of eternal life.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

Economic injustice matters to God

Fraudulent wages and self-indulgent oppression face judgment.

The Lord’s coming encourages patient endurance

Believers are told to establish their hearts.

Prayer belongs in suffering, joy, sickness, and restoration

James makes prayer a normal response across circumstances.

Restoring a wandering brother is valuable

Turning someone from error can prevent grave consequences.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Job 1–42

Job provides James’s example of endurance and the Lord’s compassion.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18

The Lord’s coming also comforts suffering believers there.

Galatians 6:1

Believers should restore an overtaken brother in meekness.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not teach that all sickness is caused by personal sin

James allows prayer for sickness without giving that universal explanation.

Do not make anointing oil a magical cure

The emphasis is prayer to the Lord.

Do not turn the wandering brother’s rescue into loss and regain of eternal life

The language can refer to temporal destruction and restoration.

Read James 5 watching for…

The sins of oppressive wealth.

Patience until the Lord’s coming.

Prophets and Job.

Prayer in different circumstances.

The wandering brother at the end.

Chapter outline5 sections

1-6Rich oppressors are warned about coming misery and judgment 7-11Believers are urged to patience until the Lord’s coming and are reminded of the prophets and Job 12Believers are told not to swear but to let their yes be yes and no be no 13-18The afflicted are to pray, the cheerful sing, the sick call for the elders, and Elijah is given as an example of effective prayer 19-20A brother who wanders from the truth should be turned back from the error of his way

Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door.

Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.

And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

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James 5:13

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