Ale for the Soul

Warning to Rich Oppressors 1 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you.  2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes.  3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.  4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.  5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 5  Or  yourselves as in a day of feasting   6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. 7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.  8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.  9

Warning Against Worldliness 4  What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are  at war within you?   2  You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.   3  You ask and do not receive, because you ask  wrongly, to spend it on your passions.   4  You adulterous people!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.   5  Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit  that he has made to dwell in us”?   6  But  he gives more grace. Therefore it says,  “God opposes the proud but  gives grace to the humble.”   7  Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.   8  Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and  purify your

3  Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.   2  For  we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says,  he is a perfect man,  able also to bridle his whole body.   3  If we put  bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well.   4  Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.   5  So also the tongue is a small member, yet  it boasts of great things.   How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!   6  And  the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members,  staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.  7  For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8  but no human being

1 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.  2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in.  3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,”  4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?  6 But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?  7 Are they not the ones who are blaspheming the noble name of him to whom you belong? 8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” 8  Lev.

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, 2  The Greek word for  brothers and sisters  ( adelphoi ) refers here to believers, both men and women, as part of God’s family; also in verses 16 and 19; and in 2:1, 5, 14; 3:10, 12; 4:11; 5:7, 9, 10, 12, 19.  whenever you face trials of many kinds,  3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.  6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.  7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

"And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature."—Numbers 13:32. "And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes. And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land."—Numbers 14:6-7. The unbelief of the children of Israel, prompted them to send spies into Canaan. God had told them that it was a good land, and he had promised to drive out their enemies, they ought therefore to have marched forward with all confidence to possess the promised heritage. Instead of this, they send twelve princes to spy out the land, and "alas, for human nature," ten of these were faithless,