James 5

James 5:1

Be alarmed, ye rich unbelieving Jews. Dreadful calamities shall quickly overtake you, except ye repent, and bereave you of whatever you have on earth, yea, of life itself, in the general destruction of your nation; which shall also be followed with inexpressibly more dreadful miseries in hell.—2, 3. Your ill-gotten and ill-employed treasures being cursed of God, instead of profiting you in the day of his wrath, shall, by the loss of them, torment your minds;—shall tempt your enemies to ravage your country, pillage your houses, and murder your persons;—and shall occasion your more terrible torments in hell

James 5:4

The Most High, who ruleth over all creatures, has heard the complaints of your poor labourers, whom ye have fraudulently deprived of their wages; 4 Peter had been originally a fisherman in Galilee, but was among the first called by Jesus Christ, to be one of his attendants and missionaries. About A. D. 65 or 66, he wrote this first epistle to the Jewish converts scattered through Lesser Asia or other parts of the Roman empire, and the second about two years after. The scope of the first is (1) To establish them in the faith of Christ, and to comfort them under their severe persecutions; chap. i. ii. 1-8. (2) To direct and animate them to an honourable, conscientious, and edifying, behaviour in a faithful discharge of all the duties of their civil or family relations; chap. ii. 9-25; iii. 1-7: and to the exercise of brotherly love, personal holiness, and a faithful discharge of their respective duties in the church; chap. iii. 8-22. iv. v. The scope of the second is to represent how gospel privileges and revelations ought to be improved in a growth in holiness of heart and life; chap. i.: to warn them against the seduction of false teachers, and all apostasy from the truth; ii.: and to represent the proper preparation for Christ’s appearance to destroy the Jewish nation and to judge the world; iii. 145 13 Q