A TRIAL — and a TEMPTATION: the one Greek word covers both, an outward testing (hardship, persecution) and an inward enticement to evil, from peirazō, 'to test, to try'. ⚠ James makes the double sense his hinge: at 1:2 believers 'fall into peirasmoi' from outside and are told to count it joy, while at 1:13 the same root is the inner pull that 'God tempts no one' with — the shift from trial to temptation is the argument. It is the word of the Lord's Prayer, 'lead us not into peirasmos' (Matthew 6:13), where the ambiguity is itself the difficulty, and of Gethsemane, 'watch and pray that you enter not into peirasmos' (Matthew 26:41). The testing may come from God; the enticement to evil never does. → first discussed at James 1:2