James 4
1 What is the cause of the fighting and quarrelling that goes on among you? Isn’t it to be found in the desires which are always at war within you?
From where are wars and fightings among you? Is it not from here: from your pleasures warring in your body-parts?
2 You crave, yet do not have, so you commit murder, so You covet, yet cannot gain your end. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.
Ye desire and do not have, so ye murder. And ye envy and cannot obtain, so ye fight and make war. Ye do not have, because ye do not ask.
3 You ask, yet do not receive, because you ask for a wrong purpose – to spend what you get on your pleasures.
Ye ask, and do not receive, because ye ask wrongly, so that ye may spend on your pleasures.
4 Unfaithful people! Don’t you know that to be friends with the world means to be at enmity with God? Therefore whoever chooses to be friends with the world makes himself an enemy to God.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is hatred of God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
5 Do you suppose scripture means nothing when it says, “Envy results from the longings of the spirit which God has implanted within you?”
Or think ye that the scripture says vainly, The Spirit that he caused to dwell in us yearns with jealousy?
6 But he gives us greater grace; and that is why it says, – “God opposes the haughty, but gives grace to the humble.”
But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, God is opposed to the arrogant, but gives grace to the lowly.
7 Therefore submit to God. Stand up to the devil, and he will flee from you.
Be subordinate therefore to God, but resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Make your hands clean, you sinners; and your hearts pure, you vacillators!
Approach God and he will approach you. Cleanse the hands, ye sinners, and purify the hearts, ye double-minded.
9 Grieve, mourn, and lament! Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your happiness to gloom!
Be ye sorrowful, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into a downcast look.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Be ye made lower in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.
11 Do not disparage one another, friends. The person who disparages others, or passes judgment on them, disparages the Law and passes judgment on the Law. But, if you pass judgment on the Law, you are not obeying it, but judging it.
Speak not against each other, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against law and judges law. But if thou judge law, thou are not a doer of law, but a judge.
12 There is only one lawgiver and judge – he who has the power both to save and to destroy. So then who are you to pass judgment on your neighbour?
There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, but thou, who are thou who judge the other man?
13 Listen to me, you who say “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money,”
Go now, men who say, Today and tomorrow we will go into this city, and will operate one year there, and will engage in trade and will get gain-
14 yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow! For you are but a puff of smoke that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
men who know not of the morrow. For what is your life? For it will be a vapor that appears for a little while, and then also vanishes away-
15 Instead you should say “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
in place of your saying, If the Lord should will, then we will live and do this or that.
16 But as it is, you are boasting presumptuously! All such boasting is wicked.
But now ye boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
17 The person, then, who knows what is right but fails to do it – that is sin in them.
He therefore who knows to do good, and is not doing it, to him it is sin.
