Courage in Crisis, Faith in Testing

1. Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly. 2. He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. 3. In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. 4. Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace his sackcloth; but he didn’t receive it. 5. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, whom he had appointed to attend her, and commanded him to go to Mordecai, to find out what this was, and why it was. 6. So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to city square which was before the king’s gate. 7. Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. 8. He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people. 9. Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. 10. Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai: 11. “All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” 12. They told to Mordecai Esther’s words. 13. Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews. 14. For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” 15. Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, 16. “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” 17. So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. 1. Now on the third day, Esther put on her royal clothing, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house. 2. When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the scepter. 3. Then the king asked her, “What would you like, queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you even to the half of the kingdom.” 4. Esther said, “If it seems good to the king, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him.” 5. Then the king said, “Bring Haman quickly, so that it may be done as Esther has said.” So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. 6. The king said to Esther at the banquet of wine, “What is your petition? It shall be granted you. What is your request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed.” 7. Then Esther answered and said, “My petition and my request is this. 8. If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I will prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king has said.” 9. Then Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart, but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he didn’t stand up nor move for him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai. 10. Nevertheless Haman restrained himself, and went home. There, he sent and called for his friends and Zeresh his wife. 11. Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, the multitude of his children, all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. 12. Haman also said, “Yes, Esther the queen let no man come in with the king to the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow I am also invited by her together with the king. 13. Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” 14. Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, “Let a gallows be made fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on it. Then go in merrily with the king to the banquet.” This pleased Haman, so he had the gallows made. 1. On that night, the king couldn’t sleep. He commanded the book of records of the chronicles to be brought, and they were read to the king. 2. It was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who were doorkeepers, who had tried to lay hands on the King Ahasuerus. 3. The king said, “What honor and dignity has been given to Mordecai for this?” Then the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.” 4. The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had come into the outer court of the king’s house, to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. 5. The king’s servants said to him, “Behold, Haman stands in the court.” The king said, “Let him come in.” 6. So Haman came in. The king said to him, “What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” Now Haman said in his heart, “Who would the king delight to honor more than myself?” 7. Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, 8. let royal clothing be brought which the king uses to wear, and the horse that the king rides on, and on the head of which a crown royal is set. 9. Let the clothing and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man whom the king delights to honor with them, and have him ride on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!’” 10. Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry and take the clothing and the horse, as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Let nothing fail of all that you have spoken.” 11. Then Haman took the clothing and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and had him ride through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!” 12. Mordecai came back to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and having his head covered. 13. Haman recounted to Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him, but you will surely fall before him.” 14. While they were yet talking with him, the king’s eunuchs came, and hurried to bring Haman to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

1. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings. 2. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, 3. knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4. Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. 5. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach; and it will be given to him. 6. But let him ask in faith, without any doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed. 7. For that man shouldn’t think that he will receive anything from the Lord. 8. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. 9. But let the brother in humble circumstances glory in his high position; 10. and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away. 11. For the sun arises with the scorching wind, and withers the grass, and the flower in it falls, and the beauty of its appearance perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in his pursuits. 12. Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him. 13. Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. 15. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, produces death. 16. Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers. 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow. 18. Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. 19. So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; 20. for the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God. 21. Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22. But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. 23. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; 24. for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25. But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does. 26. If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn’t bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is worthless. 27. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. 1. My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality. 2. For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your synagogue, and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in; 3. and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing, and say, “Sit here in a good place”; and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool”; 4. haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5. Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him? 6. But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts? 7. Don’t they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called? 8. However, if you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well. 9. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. 10. For whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. 11. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12. So speak, and so do, as men who are to be judged by a law of freedom. 13. For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. 14. What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith, but has no works? Can faith save him? 15. And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food, 16. and one of you tells them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”; and yet you didn’t give them the things the body needs, what good is it? 17. Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. 18. Yes, a man will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19. You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder. 20. But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? 21. Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22. You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected; 23. and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God. 24. You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith. 25. In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works, in that she received the messengers, and sent them out another way? 26. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead. 1. Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. 2. For in many things we all stumble. If anyone doesn’t stumble in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. 3. Indeed, we put bits into the horses’ mouths so that they may obey us, and we guide their whole body. 4. Behold, the ships also, though they are so big and are driven by fierce winds, are yet guided by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires. 5. So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest! 6. And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna. 7. For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and sea creature, is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind; 8. but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the image of God. 10. Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11. Does a spring send out from the same opening fresh and bitter water? 12. Can a fig tree, my brothers, yield olives, or a vine figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh water. 13. Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good conduct that his deeds are done in gentleness of wisdom. 14. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and don’t lie against the truth. 15. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic. 16. For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there is confusion and every evil deed. 17. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceful, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. 1. Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 2. You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. 3. You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4. You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”? 6. But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7. Be subject 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 hearts, you double-minded. 9. Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you. 11. Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12. Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another? 13. Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” 14. Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. 15. For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” 16. But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. 17. To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin. 1. Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you. 2. Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth-eaten. 3. Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days. 4. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies. 5. You have lived in luxury on the earth, and taken your pleasure. You have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter. 6. You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you. 7. Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receives the early and late rain. 8. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9. Don’t grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won’t be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door. 10. Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of perseverance, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11. Behold, we call them blessed who endured. You have heard of the perseverance of Job, and have seen the Lord in the outcome, and how the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. 12. But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear— not by heaven, or by the earth, or by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes”, and your “no”, “no”; so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy. 13. Is any among you suffering? Let him pray. Is any cheerful? Let him sing praises. 14. Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, 15. and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16. Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective. 17. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18. He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. 19. Brothers, if any among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, 20. let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

1. Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. 2. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. 3. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. 4. For there is not a word on my tongue, but, behold, Yahweh, you know it altogether. 5. You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me. 6. This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it. 7. Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence? 8. If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there! 9. If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea; 10. Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me. 11. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me; the light around me will be night”; 12. even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you. 13. For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well. 15. My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth. 16. Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them. 17. How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum! 18. If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you. 19. If only you, God, would kill the wicked. Get away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20. For they speak against you wickedly. Your enemies take your name in vain. 21. Yahweh, don’t I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you? 22. I hate them with perfect hatred. They have become my enemies. 23. Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. 24. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.