James 4

1 What is the cause of wars and fighting among you? is it not in your desires which are at war in your bodies?

Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence? even of your carnal appetites making war in your bodies?

2 You are burning with desire, and have not your desire, so you put men to death; you are full of envy, and you are not able to get your desire, so you are fighting and making war; you have not your desire, because you do not make request for it.

Ye desire, and ye have not: ye are envious, and jealous, and cannot obtain: ye fight and contend; but ye have not, because ye ask not.

3 You make your request but you do not get it, because your request has been wrongly made, desiring the thing only so that you may make use of it for your pleasure.

Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask wickedly; that ye may spend it in your pleasures.

4 O you who are false to God, do you not see that the friends of this world are not God's friends? Every man desiring to be a friend of this world makes himself a hater of God.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity to God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

5 Or does it seem to you that it is for nothing that the holy Writings say, The spirit which God put into our hearts has a strong desire for us?

Do ye think the scripture speaks in vain? or does the Spirit that dwelleth in us, excite to envy?

6 But he gives more grace. So that the Writings say, God is against the men of pride, but he gives grace to those who make themselves low before him.

No, He giveth more grace: wherefore it is said, God resisteth the proud, but sheweth favor to the humble.

7 For this cause be ruled by God; but make war on the Evil One and he will be put to flight before you.

Submit yourselves therefore to God: resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Make your hands clean, you evil-doers; put away deceit from your hearts, you false in mind.

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you: cleanse your hands, O sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

9 Be troubled, with sorrow and weeping; let your laughing be turned to sorrow and your joy to grief.

Be grieved, and mourn, and weep: let your mirth be turned into mourning, and your joy to sadness.

10 Make yourselves low in the eyes of the Lord and you will be lifted up by him.

Be humbled before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

11 Do not say evil against one another, my brothers. He who says evil against his brother or makes himself his brother's judge, says evil against the law and is judging the law: and in judging the law you become, not a doer of the law but a judge.

Speak not against one another, my brethren; he that speaketh against his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law; but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

12 There is only one judge and law-giver, even he who has the power of salvation and of destruction; but who are you to be your neighbour's judge?

Now there is but one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou then that judgest another?

13 How foolish it is to say, Today or tomorrow we will go into this town, and be there for a year and do business there and get wealth:

Come now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go to such a city, and spend a year there, and trade and get gain;

14 When you are not certain what will take place tomorrow. What is your life? It is a mist, which is seen for a little time and then is gone.

(though ye know not what will be on the morrow; for what is your life? a vapor, which appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away: ) whereas ye ought to say,

15 But the right thing to say would be, If it is the Lord's pleasure and if we are still living, we will do this and that.

If the Lord will, and we should live, and do this or that:

16 But now you go on glorying in your pride: and all such glorying is evil.

but ye glory in your presumption: all such glorying is wicked.

17 The man who has knowledge of how to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is sin.