Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles

1Come now ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries, which shall come upon you.

2Your riches are become rotten, and your garments are eaten by moths;

3Your gold and silver are rusted, and their rust will be a witness against you, and shall eat all your flesh as fire: ye have heaped together a treasure for the last days.

4Behold the wages of the workmen, who have reaped your fields, fraudulently kept back by you, loudly cry; and the cries of those who have been reaping have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

5In pleasures have ye lived on the earth, and have been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.

6Ye have condemned andkilled the just; and he does not resist you.

7Be patient then, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, having long patience for it, until he receives the early and the latter rain.

8Be ye then also patient; strengthen your hearts; because the coming of the Lord is nigh.

9Groan not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned; behold, the Judge stands before the door.

10Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

11Behold, we count them blessed who endure: ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that he is very merciful and compassionate.

12But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath; but let yours be, yea, yea; no, no; lest ye fall into condemnation.

13Is any one afflicted among you? let him pray: is any cheerful? let him sing psalms:

14Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;

15And 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.

16Confess mutually your sins, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed: the efficacious prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

17Elias was a man subject to passions in the like manner as we; and he earnestly prayed that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months:

18And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.

19My brethren, if any one among you err from the truth, and some one convert him;

20Let him know, that he who converts a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.