James 4
1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
Where do the fights and quarrels you're having come from? Aren't they due to the sensual passions that are in conflict within you?
2 You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask.
You burn with desire, but don't get what you want. You kill for what you lust after, but don't get what you're looking for. You argue and you fight, but you don't get anything, because you don't pray for it.
3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
You pray, but don't receive anything, because you ask with a wrong motive, wanting to spend what you'd receive on your selfish pleasures.
4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
You adulterous people! Don't you realize that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Those who want to be friends of the world make themselves enemies of God.
5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?
Do you think Scripture doesn't mean what it says: that the spirit that he put in us is very jealous?
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
But God gives us even more grace, as Scripture says: “God is against those who are arrogant, but gives grace to those who are humble.”
7 Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
So place yourself under God's direction. Confront the devil, and he will run away from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Come close to God and he will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Purify your way of thinking, you people with divided loyalties.
9 Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Show some remorse, cry and weep! Turn your laughter into mourning, and your joy to sadness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Be humble before the Lord and he will lift you up.
11 Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
Friends, don't speak badly of one another. Anyone who criticizes a fellow-believer and condemns them, criticizes and condemns the law. If you condemn the law you're not someone who keeps the law, because you're sitting in judgment of it.
12 Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?
There's only one lawgiver and judge—the one who can either save or destroy you—so who are you to judge your neighbor?
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”
Come on now!—you people who say, “Either today or tomorrow we'll go to such-and-such a city, spend a year in business there, and make a profit.”
14 Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
You have no idea what will happen tomorrow! What's your life like? It's just a mist that appears for a little while, and then is gone.
15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
What you should say is, “If it's the Lord's will, we'll live like this and plan to do that.”
16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.
But right now you're caught up in your vain ideas. All this boasting is evil.
17 To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.
For it is a sin if you know to do what's right but don't do it.
