¶ Go to now ye rich men. Weep, and howl on your wretchedness that shall come upon you. Your riches is corrupt, your garments are motheaten. Your gold and your silver are cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness unto you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together in your last days: Behold the hire of the laborers which have reaped down your fields (which hire is of you kept back by fraud) crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped, are entered into the ears of the Lord Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and in wantonness. Ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and have killed the just, and he hath not resisted you.
¶ Be patient therefore brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husband man waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience there upon, until he receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient therefore, and settle your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nye. Grudge not one against another brethren, lest ye be dampned. Behold the judge standeth before the door. Take (my brethren) the prophets for an ensample of suffering adversity, and of long patience, which spake in the name of the Lord. Behold we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Iob, and have known what end the Lord made. For the Lord is very pitiful, and merciful.
¶ But above all things my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by earth, neither by any other oath. Let your saying be yea yea, and nay nay: lest ye fall into hypocrisy. Is there any among of you that is evil vexed? let him pray. Is there any among you that is merry? let him sing psalms. Is there any man diseased among you? Let him call for the seniors of the congregation, and let them pray over him, and anoint 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.
¶ Knowledge your faults one to another: and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man availeth much, if it be fervent. Helias was a man in danger to tribulation as we are, and he prayed in his prayer, that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
¶ Brethren if any of you err from the truth, and another convert him, let the same know, that he which converted the sinner from going astray out of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide the multitude of sins.
The end of the pistle of Saynct Iames.
© Faith of God
William Tyndale 1526