James 4

Warning Against Worldliness

4What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions¹ are ^yat war within you?^{2 2}You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask ^zwrongly, to spend it on your passions. ^4aYou adulterous people!³ Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? ^bTherefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit ^cthat he has made to dwell in us”? ⁶But ^dhe gives more grace. Therefore it says, ^e“God opposes the proud but ^dgives grace to the humble.” ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. ^fResist the devil, and he will flee from you. ^8gDraw near to God, and he will draw near to you. ^hCleanse your hands, you sinners, and ⁱpurify your hearts, ^jyou double-minded. ^9kBe wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ^10lHumble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

^11mDo not speak evil against one another, brothers.⁴ The one who speaks against a brother or ⁿjudges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹²There is only ^oone lawgiver and ^pjudge, he who is able to save and ^qto destroy. But ^rwho are you to judge your neighbor?

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³Come now, you who say, ^s“Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For ^tyou are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead you ought to say, ^u“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶As it is, you boast in your arrogance. ^vAll such boasting is evil. ^17wSo whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.