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 hence, [even] from 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.

Ye lust and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask 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 not, because ye ask amiss, that ye 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.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever 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 ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

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

But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to 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, [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 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 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.

Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of [his] brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art 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 art thou that judgest 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.”

Come now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow 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 ye know not what [will be] on the morrow: For what [is] your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

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

Instead of that ye [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 ye 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 knoweth to do good, and doeth [it] not, to him it is sin.