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 fightings among you? come they not behind, even of your lusts that 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.

All of you lust, and have not: all of you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: all of you fight and war, yet all of you have not, because all of you ask not.

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

All of you ask, and receive not, because all of you ask amiss, that all of you may consume it upon your lusts.

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.

All of you adulterers and adulteresses, know all of you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

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

Do all of you think that the scripture says in vain, The spirit (pneuma) that dwells in us lusts to envy?

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

But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.

7 Be subject therefore to God. 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. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, all of you sinners; and purify your hearts, all of you double minded.

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

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

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

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall 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.

Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law: but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a 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 is able to save and to destroy: who are you that judge another?

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.”

Go to now, all of you that say, To day or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

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.

Whereas all of you know not what shall be on the next day. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.

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

For that all of you ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

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

But now all of you rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

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

Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.