James 4

1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?

FROM whence come wars and conflicts among you? spring they not from hence, even from your passions, which war in your members?

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.

Ye eagerly covet, yet have not: ye murder, and are envious, yet cannot obtain your object; ye wage war, but have not, because ye pray not.

3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Ye ask, and receive nothing, because ye ask vilely, in order to consume it on your sensual appetites.

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.

Ye adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity against God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is set down an enemy to God.

5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?

Think ye that the scripture saith without meaning, The spirit which dwelleth in you strongly urges to envy?

6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

But he giveth mightier grace. Wherefore he saith, “God sets himself against the proud, but giveth grace to the lowly.”

7 Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Be in subjection then to God. Resist the devil, and he will fly 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.

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Make clean your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.

9 Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Be bitterly afflicted and lament, and let your tears run down; let your laughter be converted into mourning, and your joy into dejection.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Be humbled in the presence of God, so he will exalt you.

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.

Traduce not one another, brethren. He that traduceth his brother, and judgeth his brother, traduceth the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but as judge.

12 Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?

There is one lawgiver, who can save or destroy: who art thou that judgest another man?

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 now, ye that talk, To-day or to-morrow we will go to such a town, and do business there during one year, and traffic, and make great profits:

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.

though ye know nothing of what shall be to-morrow. For what is your life? It is but a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and then vanishes away.

15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”

Instead of your saying, If the Lord pleases, and we are alive, then we will do this or that thing.

16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.

But now ye glory in your proud boastings: all such glorying is wicked.

17 To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.

Therefore if a man knoweth how to act properly, and doth not, he is criminal.