<t /><p class="bodytext">Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters!<n id="1" /> Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

Grieve, mourn,<n id="1" /> and weep. Turn your laughter<n id="2" /> into mourning and your joy into despair.

And if we put bits into the mouths of horses to get them to obey us, then we guide their entire bodies.<n id="1" />

By his sovereign plan he gave us birth<n id="1" /> through the message of truth, that we would be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.p>

For if someone<n id="1" /> comes into your assembly<n id="2" /> wearing a gold ring and fine clothing, and a poor person enters in filthy clothes,

But you have dishonored the poor!<n id="1" /> Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into the courts?

And the scripture was fulfilled that says, &#8220;<b><i>Now Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousnessi>b>,&#8221;<n id="1" /> and <i>he was called God&#8217;s friendi>.<n id="2" />

<p class="bodytext">Come now, you who say, &#8220;Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town<n id="1" /> and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.&#8221;

But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there,<n id="1" /> and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out &#8211; he<n id="2" /> will be blessed in what he does.<n id="3" />

Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you. It will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have hoarded treasure!<n id="1" />

Look, the pay you have held back from the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.