James 5:3

Translations

Modern

Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days.

Traditional

Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

Literal

Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You treasured up in the last days.

Latin

Aurum et argentum vestrum æruginavit: et ærugo eorum in testimonium vobis erit, et manducabit carnes vestras sicut ignis. Thesaurizastis vobis iram in novissimis diebus.

Original

Greek

English

Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days.

Notes

James 5:3

Material wealth, like gold and silver, is worthless when facing God's judgment. It will actually speak against them because they obtained it unfairly and used it wickedly ( 5:4, 5–6).

James 5:1–6

This section criticizes wealthy people for being greedy and proud mistreatment of the poor (Leviticus 19:13). James warns them to change their ways while they still can. If they do not, they will encounter frightening consequences on judgment day.

Theme notes and profiles

James, Brother of Jesus The Coming of the Lord as Judge

Related verses

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But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
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Revelation 21:8
But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”
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In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.
Revelation 20:15
And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’
Deuteronomy 32:33–34
Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.
Joshua 24:27
And Joshua said to all the people, “You see this stone. It will be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words the LORD has spoken to us, and it will be a witness against you if you ever deny your God.”
Micah 4:1
In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and the peoples will stream to it.
Genesis 31:52
This mound is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this mound to harm you, and you will not go past this mound and pillar to harm me.
2 Timothy 2:17
…and the talk of such men will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus,
Job 16:8
You have bound me, and it has become a witness; my frailty rises up and testifies against me.

James 5:3

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