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.
Parallel translations
- WEB 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.
- BSB 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.
- NKJV Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days.
- NASB Your gold and your silver have corroded, and their corrosion will serve as a testimony against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure!
- NLT Your gold and silver are corroded. The very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire. This corroded treasure you have hoarded will testify against you on the day of judgment.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Corroded gold and silver will testify against those who hoarded in the last days. Selfishly stored wealth becomes evidence of guilt.
Overview
James declares that the very corrosion of hoarded treasure will witness against its owners and consume them like fire in judgment. Hoarding in the last days, the era between Christ's comings, is shortsighted folly when the day of accounting is near. The vivid imagery warns that misused wealth secures not safety but condemnation before God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 19
- Rom 2:5But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
- Jas 5:7–8Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.
- Rev 21:8But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
- Isa 2:2And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
- Rev 20:15And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
- Gen 31:52This heap be witness, and this pillar be witness, that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm.
- 2 Tim 2:17And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
- Mic 4:1But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.
- Deut 32:33–34Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
- 2 Pet 3:3Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
- Job 16:8And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face.
- Jer 19:9And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.
- Gen 49:1And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.
- Job 14:16–17For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?
- Mic 3:3Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.
- Josh 24:27And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God.
- Rev 17:16And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.
- Gen 31:48And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day. Therefore was the name of it called Galeed;
- Acts 2:17And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
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