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?

Now I will tell you why you are fighting among yourselves and quarreling with each other [RHQ]. It is [RHQ] because each of you wants to do evil things [PRS]. You keep on wanting to do things that are not [what God wants you to do].

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.

There are things that you [very much] desire to have, but you do not get [those things, so] you [want to] kill [HYP] [those who hinder you from getting them]. You desire what [other people have], but you are unable to get [what you desire, so] you quarrel and fight [with one another] [HYP]. You do not have [what you desire] because you do not ask [God for it].

3 You ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires.

[And even when] you do ask [him], he does not give you [what you ask for] because you are asking for the wrong reason. [You are asking for things] in order that you may use them just to (enjoy yourselves/make yourselves happy).

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.

[Like] a woman who is unfaithful to her husband, you [are being unfaithful to God and not obeying him any more] [MET]. Those who are behaving as evil people do [MTY] (OR, Those who love [the evil pleasures of] this world) are hostile toward God. Perhaps you do not realize that [RHQ]. So those who decide to act as evil people do [MTY] become enemies of God.

5 Or do you think that Scripture says in vain: “The spirit which lives within you desires unto envy?”

(Surely you remember that [God told us in] the Scriptures that he eagerly desires that his Spirit, who lives in us, will help us to love [God] only!/Do you think that it is for no reason that [God told us in] the Scriptures that he strongly desires that his Spirit, who lives in us, will help us to love [God] only?) [RHQ] God has a reason for desiring that.

6 But he gives a greater grace. Therefore he says: “God resists the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble.”

[It is because] he is kind [to us and he] wants very much to help us. That is why (someone said/[King Solomon] wrote) [in the Scriptures], “God opposes those who are proud, but he helps those who are humble.”

7 Therefore, be subject to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

So submit yourselves to God. (Resist the devil/Refuse to do what the devil wants), and [as a result] he will run away 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!

Come near [spiritually] to God, and [as a result] he will come near to you. You who are sinners, stop doing what is wrong, and do only what is good [SYN, MET]. You who cannot decide [whether you will] ([commit yourselves to God/obey God completely]), stop thinking wrong thoughts, and think only pure thoughts [MTY].

9 Be afflicted: mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your gladness into sorrow.

Be sorrowful and weep/mourn [DOU] [because of the wrong things that you have done]. Do not laugh [DOU], ([enjoying only what you selfishly/enjoying only what you yourselves]) [desire]. Instead, be sad [because you have done what is wrong].

10 Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and [as a result] he will honor 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.

My fellow believers, stop saying evil things about one another, [because] those who say something evil about a fellow believer and [are therefore] condemning [one who is like] a brother [to them] are really speaking against the law [that God gave us to obey]. [In this law, God commanded] [MTY] [us to love others], and those who say evil things about fellow believers, [it is as though] they are saying that we do not have to do what [God] commanded. If you [(sg)] say that you do not have to do what God commanded, you [(sg)] are not obeying God’s law. Instead, you [(sg)] are claiming that you [have the authority] to condemn [others].

12 There is one lawgiver and one judge. He is able to destroy, and he is able to set free.

[But in fact], there is only one who [has the authority to] tell [people] what is right to do and to condemn [them, and that is God]. He alone is able to save [people] or to destroy people. [So], (you [(sg)] certainly have no right to decide how God should punish other people./who are you to decide how God should punish other people?) [RHQ]

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,”

[Some of you] are [arrogantly] saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will spend a year there and we will buy and sell things and earn a lot of money.” Now, you listen to me!

14 consider that you do not know what will be tomorrow.

[You should not talk like that, because] you do not know what will happen tomorrow, and you do not know [how long] you will live! Your life [is short] [MET], [like] a mist that appears for a short time and then disappears.

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 of [what you are saying], you should say, “If the Lord wills/desires, we will live and do this or that.”

16 But now you exult in your arrogance. All such exultation is wicked.

But what you are doing is boasting about all the things that you arrogantly [plan to do]. Your boasting like that 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.

So if anyone knows the right thing that he should do, [but] he does not do it, he is sinning.