James 5

₁Rich people, listen to me: You must cry loudly and mourn because very bad things are going to happen to you. ₂All your money and things are disappearing. Things are going bad. The moths are eating your clothes. ₃Your gold and silver is rusting and the rust will be a witness against you that will show the bad things that you have done, and that rust will be like a fire that will burn your bodies. This is because you have stored up your money and beautiful things and you have kept it for yourselves in these last days before the Lord comes again. ₄Look what you did. You did not pay the people who cut the wheat in your fields. The money that you did not pay them is accusing you before the Lord Almighty. He always listens when the workers call Him and ask Him to help them.

₅Here on earth you had lots of money to buy expensive things and to enjoy your life. You have become fat when there is no more time before God comes to punish everyone who has done wrong. ₆You have said that innocent people are guilty. They could not help themselves and you have killed them.

₇Friends, you must wait patiently until the Lord comes. You know that a farmer waits patiently for all the wheat in the field to grow before he cuts it off. He waits patiently for the first rain and the last rain to come. ₈It is the same for you. You must also be patient. Keep on hoping. It will not be long, and then the Lord will come. ₉Friends, you must not complain about each other. If you complain, the Lord will judge you. Yes, He is the Judge and He is near, as near as someone who stands outside the door.

₁₀Friends, look at the prophets and do what they did. They told the people what God said to them and they waited patiently, even when they suffered. ₁₁We think those people who waited patiently were blessed. You have seen how patient Job was and how God blessed him in the end. The Lord felt sorry for Job and later He was very good to him.

₁₂My friends, this is the most important thing of all: Do not promise something and say that heaven is your witness. Do not promise something and say the earth is your witness. Do not promise anything and say something is your witness. You must say ‘yes’ when you want to say yes and you must say ‘no’ when you want to say no, and then God will not punish you.

₁₃If any one of you is suffering, then he must pray. If anyone is happy, then he must sing to the Lord. ₁₄If any one of you is sick, then he must ask the elders of the congregation to come to him. The elders must pray for him in the power of the name of the Lord and they must put some olive oil on the person. ₁₅If the elders pray and they believe, then God will heal the sick person, and he will get better. The Lord will make him stand up from his bed. And if he has sinned, the Lord will forgive his sins.

₁₆That is why you must tell each other that you are sorry for your sins. You must also pray for each other so that God will heal you. When someone does what God wants and he prays, great and wonderful things will happen. ₁₇Elijah was a man like us. He prayed for a long time and asked God that it would not rain, and for 3 years and 6 months there was no rain on the earth. ₁₈Then Elijah prayed again and the rain fell from the sky on the earth and the plants grew.

₁₉My friends, if one of the believers with you has stopped listening to the truth of the Good_News, and one of you helps him to turn back and listen to the Lord again, ₂₀then you must remember: If someone helps a believer turn away from his wrong ways and saves him from death, then it means that the Lord will forgive many sins.