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“Now Listen Carefully, You Who Are Rich!”
1 Now listen carefully, you who are rich! Weep and wail because of the miseries that are to come upon you!
2 Your riches are doomed to rot away, and your fine clothing is as good as eaten away by moths.
3 Your gold and silver are destined to rust, and the corrosion that eats away at them will be used as evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the latter days!
4 Listen! The wages owed to the workers who swung the sickle in your fields, which have been deceitfully withheld: It is against you that they are crying out! The outcry of the harvesters has reached the very ears of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies himself!
5 You have gorged yourselves in the land and lived lives of luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves up for the day of slaughter.
6 You are responsible for the condemnation and murder of the innocent. God will certainly oppose you, will he not?
“Be Patient, Brothers, until the Lord Returns”
7 In light of all these things, be patient, brothers and sisters, until the Lord returns. Consider how patient the farmer is as he waits for the land to yield its precious harvest, as he waits for the sowing-time rains of autumn and the springtime rains that ripen the harvest.
8 You, too, must be patient. Be strong and don’t give up, because the Lord’s return is drawing near.
9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, so that you won’t be condemned. Look! The judge is standing right at the door!
10 As an example, brothers and sisters, of patience in times of suffering, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord.
11 Think of how we regard as blessed those who patiently endured. You have heard about the patient endurance, for instance, of Job, and know what the Lord himself did in the end, compassionate and merciful as the Lord is.
12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, you must be careful not to use oaths when making promises. You must not swear “by heaven,” or “by the earth,” or by any other sacred place or thing. Instead, your “Yes” is to simply mean “Yes,” and your “No” is to simply mean “No,” lest you come under judgment.
13 Is anyone among you suffering hardship? He must keep on praying. Is someone feeling encouraged? He should sing songs of praise.
14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the assembly, and they should pray over him, anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord.
15 And the prayer offered in faith will rescue the sick person. The Lord will restore him to health, and if he has committed any sins, they will be forgiven him.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful and effective.
17 Take Elijah, for example. Although he was no less weak and human than we are, he prayed earnestly for it not to rain, and rain didn’t fall on the land for three and a half years.
18 And then he prayed once again, and the sky did send rain, and the land yielded its fruit.
19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you strays from the truth and someone brings him back,
20 the one who brings him back can be sure of this: Whoever brings a sinner back from the deceitful path he has taken will save that person from death and “cover a multitude of sins.”+