James 4
1 What is the cause of the fighting and quarrelling that goes on among you? Is not it to be found in the desires which are always at war within you?
Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence? even of your carnal appetites making war in your bodies?
2 You crave, yet do not obtain. You murder and rage, yet cannot gain your end. You quarrel and fight. You do not obtain, because you do not ask.
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 ask, yet do not receive, because you ask for a wrong purpose — to spend what you get upon your pleasures.
Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask wickedly; that ye may spend it in your pleasures.
4 Unfaithful people! Do not 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 enmity to God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
5 Do you suppose there is no meaning in the passage of Scripture which asks — ‘Is envy to result from the longings of the Spirit which God has implanted within you?’
Do ye think the scripture speaks in vain? or does the Spirit that dwelleth in us, excite to envy?
6 No; the gift that God gives is for a nobler end; and that is why it is said — ‘God is opposed to the haughty, but gives help to the humble.’
No, He giveth more grace: wherefore it is said, God resisteth the proud, but sheweth favor to the humble.
7 Therefore submit to God; but resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
Submit yourselves therefore 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 vacillating men!
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you: cleanse your hands, O sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9 Grieve, mourn, and lament! Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your happiness to gloom!
Be grieved, and mourn, and weep: let your mirth be turned into mourning, and your joy to sadness.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Be humbled before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
11 Do not disparage one another, Brothers. He who disparages his Brother, or passes judgment on his Brother, 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 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 Lawgiver and Judge — he who has the power both to save and to destroy. But who are you that pass judgment on your neighbour?
Now there is but one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou then that judgest another?
13 Listen to me, you who say ‘To-day or to-morrow we will go to such and such a town, spend a year there, and trade, and make money,’
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 And yet you do not know what your life will be like to-morrow! For you are but a mist appearing for a little while and then disappearing.
(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 You ought, rather, to say ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’
If the Lord will, and we should live, and do this or that:
16 But, as it is, you are constantly boasting presumptuously! All such boasting is wicked.
but ye glory in your presumption: all such glorying is wicked.
17 He, then, who knows what is right but fails to do it — that is sin in him.
To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is sin.
