James 5:2

2 Your wealth has rotted, and your clothing has become moth-eaten.

James 5:2 Meaning and Commentary

James 5:2

Your riches are corrupted
Either through disuse of them; and so the phrase is expressive of their tenaciousness, withholding that from themselves and others which is meet, and which is keeping riches for the owners thereof, to their hurt; or these are corrupted, and are corruptible things, fading and perishing, and will stand in no stead in the day of wrath, and therefore it is great weakness to put any trust and confidence in them:

and your garments are moth eaten;
being neither wore by themselves, nor put upon the backs of others, as they should, but laid up in wardrobes, or in chests and coffers, and so became the repast of moths, and now good for nothing.

James 5:2 In-Context

1 Come now, you rich people, weep [and] cry aloud over the miseries that are coming upon you!

2 Your wealth has rotted, and your clothing has become moth-eaten.

3 Your gold and silver have become corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you, and it will consume your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days.

4 Behold, the wages that were held back by you from the workers who reap your fields cry out, and the cries of the reapers have come to the ears of the Lord of hosts.

5 You have lived self-indulgently on the earth and have lived luxuriously. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter.