---
title: James 5:3
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/james-5-3/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/james-5-3.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: James 5:3
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# James 5:3

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> 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.

## JW Usage

Used as part of the Watchtower's "last days" composite sign for 1914 — the hoarders of James 5:3 are read as the end-time wealthy whose accumulated capital becomes evidence of moral decline since Jesus' invisible enthronement. James's own phrase "in the last days" is treated as prophetic, applying to our era.

## Protestant Usage

James says his own audience has hoarded treasure "in the last days." If the last days began in 1914, James's pastoral warning to first-century believers would have been incomprehensible to them. The unanimous New Testament witness — Acts 2:17, Hebrews 1:2, 1 John 2:18, 1 Peter 1:20, Hebrews 9:26, 1 Corinthians 10:11, James 5:3 — places the last days in the first century, beginning with Christ's incarnation, ministry, and Pentecost. James 5:3 belongs in that catena. The "last days" are not ahead of us waiting to begin; they are the long age between the first and second comings of Christ, and the moral warning of James 5:3 is pastorally live for every Christian living in that whole period.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The 'Last Days' Started at Pentecost — Not 1914](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/2timothy3-last-days.md) — 2 Timothy 3:1-5 / Hebrews 1:2 / Acts 2:17 [Eschatology]