James 4

Friendship with the World

4Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you. ²You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it. ³And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures. ⁴Unfaithful people! Don’t you know that to be the world’s friend means to be God’s enemy? People who want to be the world’s friends make themselves God’s enemies. ⁵Don’t think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, “The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires.”^{b 6*}But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁷So then, submit to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you. ⁸Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites! ⁹Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom! ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Warning against Judging a Christian Brother

¹¹Do not criticize one another, my brothers and sisters. If you criticize fellow-Christians or judge them, you criticize the Law and judge it. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it. ¹²God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are, to judge someone else?

Warning against Boasting

^13*Now listen to me, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.” ^14*You don’t even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears. ¹⁵What you should say is this: “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong.

¹⁷So then, those who do not do the good they know they should do are guilty of sin.