James 4

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

Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence? even of your carnal appetites making war in your bodies?

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 desire, and ye have not: ye are envious, and jealous, and cannot obtain: ye fight and contend; but 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 wickedly; that ye may spend it in 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.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity to God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world becomes an 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 the scripture speaks in vain? or does the Spirit that dwelleth in us, excite to envy?

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

No, He giveth more grace: wherefore it is said, God resisteth the proud, but sheweth favor 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 near to God, and He will draw near to you: cleanse your hands, O 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 grieved, and mourn, and weep: let your mirth be turned into mourning, and your joy to sadness.

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

Be humbled 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.

Speak not against one another, my brethren; he that speaketh against his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law; but if thou judge 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?

Now there is but one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou then 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 to such a city, and spend a year there, and trade 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.

(though ye know not what will be on the morrow; for what is your life? a vapor, which appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away: ) whereas ye ought to say,

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

If the Lord will, and we should live, and do this or that:

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

but ye glory in your presumption: all such glorying is wicked.

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

To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doth it not, to him it is sin.