James 4

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

What is the cause of the fighting and quarrelling that goes on among you? Isn’t it to be found in the desires which are always at war 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 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.

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

You ask, yet do not receive, because you ask for a wrong purpose – to spend what you get on your 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.

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.

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

Do you suppose scripture means nothing when it says, “Envy results from the longings of the spirit which God has implanted within you?”

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

But he gives us greater grace; and that is why it says, – “God opposes the haughty, but gives grace to the humble.”

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

Therefore submit to God. Stand up to 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 near to God, and he will draw near to you. Make your hands clean, you sinners; and your hearts pure, you vacillators!

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

Grieve, mourn, and lament! Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your happiness to gloom!

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

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and 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.

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.

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

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 neighbour?

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.”

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,”

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.

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.

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

Instead you should say “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

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

But as it is, you are boasting presumptuously! All such boasting is wicked.

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

The person, then, who knows what is right but fails to do it – that is sin in them.