James 4
1 Where do wars and contentions among you come from? Is it not from this: from your own desires, which battle within your members?
From where [are] wars and fightings among you? [Is it] not from here, out of your passions warring in your members?
2 You desire, and you do not have. You envy and you kill, and you are unable to obtain. You argue and you fight, and you do not have, because you do not ask.
You desire, and do not have, [so] you murder; and you are zealous, and are not able to attain, [so] you fight and war; and you do not have, because of your not asking;
3 You ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires.
you ask, and you do not receive, because you ask badly, that you may spend [it] in your pleasures.
4 You adulterers! Do you not know that the friendship of this world is hostile to God? Therefore, whoever has chosen to be a friend of this world has been made into an enemy of God.
Adulterers and adulteresses! Have you not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever, then, may intend to be a friend of the world, he is designated [as] an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think that Scripture says in vain: “The spirit which lives within you desires unto envy?”
Or, do you think that the Writing says emptily, “The Spirit that has dwelt in us yearns with envy,”
6 But he gives a greater grace. Therefore he says: “God resists the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble.”
but [God] gives greater grace, for this reason it says, “God sets Himself up against proud ones, and He gives grace to lowly ones.”
7 Therefore, be subject to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Be subject, then, to God; stand up against the Devil, and he will flee from you;
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners! And purify your hearts, you duplicitous souls!
draw near to God, and He will draw near to you; cleanse hands, you sinners! And purify hearts, you split-souled!
9 Be afflicted: mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your gladness into sorrow.
Be exceedingly afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and the joy to heaviness;
10 Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
be made low before the LORD, and He will exalt you.
11 Brothers, do not choose to slander one another. Whoever slanders his brother, or whoever judges his brother, slanders the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
Do not speak against one another, brothers; he who is speaking against a brother, and is judging his brother, speaks against law, and judges law, and if you judge law, you are not a doer of law but a judge.
12 There is one lawgiver and one judge. He is able to destroy, and he is able to set free.
One is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; you—who are you that judges the other?
13 But who are you to judge your neighbor? Consider this, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into that city, and certainly we will spend a year there, and we will do business, and we will make our profit,”
Go, now, you who are saying, “Today and tomorrow we will go on to such a city, and will pass there one year, and traffic, and make gain,”
14 consider that you do not know what will be tomorrow.
who does not know the thing of tomorrow; for what is your life? For it is a vapor that is appearing for a little [while], and then is vanishing;
15 For what is your life? It is a mist that appears for a brief time, and afterwards will vanish away. So what you ought to say is: “If the Lord wills,” or, “If we live,” we will do this or that.
instead, you [ought] to say, “If the LORD may will, we will live, and do this or that”;
16 But now you exult in your arrogance. All such exultation is wicked.
but now you glory in your pride; all such glorying is evil;
17 Therefore, he who knows that he ought to do a good thing, and does not do it, for him it is a sin.
to him, then, knowing to do good, and not doing [it], it is sin to him.
