Font Size
James 5:1-3
New Catholic Bible
James 5:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 5
Woe to the Rich.[a] 1 Come now, you who are rich. Lament and weep over the miseries that will soon overwhelm you. 2 Your riches have rotted. Your clothes are all moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver have corroded. Their corrosion will serve as a witness against you and consume your flesh like a fire. You have hoarded wealth for the last days.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- James 5:1 Here, we hear again the cries of the Prophets denouncing the injustice and inhumanity of riches (see Isa 5:8-10; Jer 5:26-30; Am 8:4-8); we also hear the voice of Christ placing us on guard against the danger of riches (see Lk 6:24; 18:24-27). The Bible has always seen the accumulation of goods as tarnished by some injustice. It instinctively feels how riches give birth to a type of person whose sense of his own human condition becomes warped and who loses sight of the proper relationship of fraternity and justice in regard to others.
