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 is it, that there are among you fightings and broils? Is it not from the lusts, 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 covet, and possess not; and ye kill, and envy, and effect nothing: and ye fight and make attacks; and 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 pamper 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, know ye not, that the love of the world is hostility towards God? He therefore who chooseth to be a lover of this 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”?
Or think ye, that the scripture hath vainly said: The spirit dwelling in us lusteth with envy?
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
But our Lord hath given us more grace. Therefore he said: The Lord humbleth the lofty, and giveth grace to the lowly.
7 Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Subject yourselves therefore to God; and stand firm against Satan, 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: sanctify your hearts, ye divided in mind.
9 Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves, and mourn: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into grief.
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.
Speak not against each other, my brethren; for he that speaketh against his brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law. And if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but its 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 Law-giver and Judge, who can make alive, and can destroy: but who art thou, that thou judgest thy neighbor?
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.”
But what shall we say of those, who say: To-day or to-morrow we will go to such or such a city, and will abide there a year; and we will traffic, 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.
And they know not what will be to-morrow: for what is our life, but an exhalation that is seen a little while, and then vanisheth and is gone?
15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
Whereas they should say: If the Lord please, and we live, we will do this or that.
16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.
They glory in their vaunting. All such glorying is evil.
17 To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.
He that knoweth the good, and doeth it not, to him is sin.
