<p>5:2<i> Your riches are corrupted and your garments are moth eaten</i>-The similarities between them and the priests is continued by their garments being described as moth eaten; which exactly fits the context of Heb. 8:13, which describes the old covenant as a decaying garment about to vanish away in AD70. Thus the Jewish ecclesial elders were so closely associated with the Law due to their desire to justify their materialism (which the riches and garments must also refer to) that they were to be destroyed along with it. That these rich men were in the ecclesia is confirmed by the reference back to the rich brother in goodly apparel being given a prominent place in the ecclesial meeting place (2:2).</p><p>Note the present tenses: &quot;are corrupted... are moth eaten&quot;. The unlikelihood that they walked around in literally moth eaten clothes or that their gold was literally corrupted indicates that James meant that they were like this in the sight of God. This provides an interesting key to Mt. 6:19-21, to which there is a clear allusion: &quot;Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust corrupt... but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven... for their will your heart be also&quot;. Thus James read the moth and rust corrupting as being in God's sight- if a man's heart is set on earthly things, God looks ahead to the distant day when those possessions have decayed, perhaps after the person's death, and as they are then, so God considers them to be in this present life. The emphasis in Mt.6 is on where the heart is- which precisely agrees with the context of James. Our mind <i>is</i> able to see our material possessions in a similar light to how God does.</p>