James 4
1 What is the cause of the fighting and quarreling that goes on among you? Isn’t it to be found in the desires which are always at war within you?
Where do the wars and disputes among you come from? Is it not precisely from your pleasures, the ones at war in your members?
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.
You crave and do not have; you murder and covet and are not able to obtain; you fight and war. You do not have because you 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.
You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may lavish it 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.
Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? So whoever may want to be a friend of the world makes himself 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 do you suppose that the Scripture says in vain that the Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?
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 He says: “God resists proud ones, but gives grace to humble ones.”
7 Therefore submit to God. Stand up to the devil, and he will flee from you.
Therefore submit to God. 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!
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Sinners, cleanse your hands! Double-minded, purify your hearts!
9 Grieve, mourn, and lament! Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your happiness to gloom!
Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into dejection.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Humble yourself before the Lord and He will exalt you.
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.
Brothers, do not speak evil of one another. Because the one speaking against a brother and judging his brother speaks against a law and judges a law. So if you judge a law you are not a law-doer 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 neighbor?
The Lawgiver and Judge is One, the one who is able to save and to destroy. So who are you (sg) to be judging someone who is different?
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,’
Come now, you who say, “Today and tomorrow let us travel to that certain city, spend a year there, do business and make a profit;”
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.
whereas you do not know anything about the morrow. For what is our life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time but then vanishes away.
15 Instead you should say ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
16 But as it is, you are boasting presumptuously! All such boasting is wicked.
But now you boast in your arrogant pretensions. All such boasting is malignant.
17 The person, then, who knows what is right but fails to do it – that is sin in them.
Therefore, to the one knowing to do good and not doing it, to him it is sin.
