James 5:2
All your money and clothes, and those things you got for yourself, they will all become useless. They will rot away. Or they will rust away. Or white ants will eat them. God will see that rusty rotten mess, and he will say that you are too greedy, and he will punish you with big trouble. It will be like a fire burning up your body. You thought you could keep all that stuff for a long time, but you will not have it for very long.
Plain English Version
In The King James Version
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
In Context
Cross References
Matthew 6:19Jesus said, “If you have a lot of money and other good things here in this world, don’t try to keep them all for yourself. No. But give them away to people that need them. When you do that, it’s like you give them to God, and he will keep them for you in heaven. You see, here in this world you might lose them. There are things here that might eat them, like grubs or white ants. Or your good things might go rusty. Or somebody might steal them. But nothing will eat them in heaven, and they will not go rusty in heaven, and nobody there will steal them.
James 2:2Suppose one man comes to your meeting wearing really pretty clothes and gold rings on his fingers, and another poor man comes wearing old rubbish clothes.
Matthew Henry on James 5:2-12
Warnings to the Rich; Motives to Patience under Affliction. ( a. d. 61.) 1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. 3 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. 4 Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and… Read the whole commentary →