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For this is not wisdom, descending from above: but earthly, sensual, devilish.
For where envying and contention is: there is inconstancy and every evil work.
But the wisdom that is from above, first indeed is chaste, then peaceable, modest, easy to be persuaded, consenting to the good, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, without dissimulation.
And the fruit of justice is sown in peace, to them that make peace.
From whence are wars and contentions among you? Are they not hence, from your concupiscences, which war in your members?
You covet, and have not: you kill and envy and cannot obtain. You contend and war, and you have not: because you ask not.
You ask and receive not: because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your concupiscences.
Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world becometh an enemy of God.
Or do you think that the scripture saith in vain: To envy doth the spirit covet which dwelleth in you?
But he giveth greater grace. Wherefore he saith: God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.
Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil: and he will fly from you.
Draw nigh to God: and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Be afflicted and mourn and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into sorrow.
Be humbled in the sight of the Lord: and he will exalt you.
Detract not one another, my brethren. He that detracteth his brother, or he that judgeth his brother, detracteth the law and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.
There is one lawgiver and judge, that is able to destroy and to deliver.
But who art thou that judgest thy neighbour? Behold, now you that say: To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and there we will spend a year and will traffic and make our gain.
Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow.
For what is your life? It is a vapour which appeareth for a little while and afterwards shall vanish away. For that you should say: If the Lord will, and, If we shall live, we will do this or that.
But now you rejoice in your arrogancies. All such rejoicing is wicked.
To him therefore who knoweth to do good and doth it not, to him it is sin.
Go to now, ye rich men: weep and howl in your miseries, which 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 for a testimony against you and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days.
Behold 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.
You have feasted upon earth: and in riotousness you have nourished your hearts, in the day of slaughter.
You have condemned and put to death the Just One: and he resisted you not.
Be 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.
Be you therefore also patient and strengthen your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand.
Grudge not, brethren, one against another, that you may not be judged. Behold the judge standeth before the door.
Take, my brethren, for example of suffering evil, of labour and patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
Behold, 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.
But 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.
Is any of you sad? Let him pray: Is he cheerful in mind? Let him sing.
Is 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.
And 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.
Confess 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.
Elias 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.
And he prayed again. And the heaven gave rain: and the earth brought forth her fruit.
My brethren, if any of you err from the truth and one convert him:
He 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.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers dispersed through Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, elect,
According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy hath regenerated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead:
Unto an inheritance, incorruptible, and undefiled and that cannot fade, reserved in heaven for you,
Who, by the power of God, are kept by faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
Wherein you shalt greatly rejoice, if now you must be for a little time made sorrowful in divers temptations:
That the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold which is tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honour at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
Whom having not seen, you love: in whom also now though you see him not, you believe and, believing, shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorified;
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and diligently searched, who prophesied of the grace to come in you.
Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, when it foretold those sufferings that are in Christ and the glories that should follow.
To whom it was revealed that, not to themselves but to you, they ministered those things which are now declared to you by them that have preached the gospel to you: the Holy Ghost being sent down from heaven, on whom the angels desire to look.
Wherefore, having the loins of your mind girt up, being sober, trust perfectly in the grace which is offered you in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
As children of obedience, not fashioned according to the former desires of your ignorance,
But according to him that hath called you, who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy:
Because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy.
And if you invoke as Father him who, without respect of persons, judgeth according to every one's work: converse in fear during the time of your sojourning here.
Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition of your fathers:
But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled.
Foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times for you:
Who through him are faithful in God who raised him up from the dead and hath given him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.
Purifying your souls in the obedience of charity, with a brotherly love, from a sincere heart love one another earnestly:
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, by the word of God who liveth and remaineth for ever.
For all flesh is as grass and all the glory thereof as the flower of grass. The grass is withered and the flower thereof is fallen away.
But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel hath been preached unto you.
Wherefore laying away all malice and all guile and dissimulations and envies and all detractions,
As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation:
If so be you have tasted that the Lord is sweet.
Unto whom coming, as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men but chosen and made honourable by God:
Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
Wherefore it is said in the scripture: Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious. And he that shall believe in him shall not be confounded.
To you therefore that believe, he is honour: but to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner:
And a stone of stumbling and a rock of scandal, to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set.
But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:
Who in times past were not a people: but are now the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy: but now have obtained mercy.
Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires which war against the soul,
Having your conversation good among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by the good works which they shall behold in you, glorify God in the day of visitation.
Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the king as excelling,
Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good.
For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:
As free and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God.
Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward.
For this is thankworthy: if, for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully.
For what glory is it, if, committing sin and being buffeted for it, you endure? But if doing well you suffer patiently: this is thankworthy before God.
For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps.
Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.
Who, when he was reviled, did not revile: when he suffered, he threatened not, but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly.
Who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice: by whose stripes you were healed.
For you were as sheep going astray: but you are now converted to the shepherd and bishop of your souls.
In like manner also, let wives be subject to their husbands: that, if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversation of the wives,
Considering your chaste conversation with fear.
Whose adorning, let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel:
But the hidden man of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and a meek spirit which is rich in the sight of God.
For after this manner heretofore, the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands:
As Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters you are, doing well and not fearing any disturbance.
Ye husbands, likewise dwelling with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the female as to the weaker vessel and as to the co-heirs of the grace of life: that your prayers be not hindered.
And in fine, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood, merciful, modest, humble:
Not rendering evil for evil, nor railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing: for unto this are you called, that you may inherit a blessing.