¹What causes fights and quarrels among you? Aren’t they caused by the selfish desires that fight to control you? ²You want what you don’t have, so you commit murder. You’re determined to have things, but you can’t get what you want. You quarrel and fight. You don’t have the things you want, because you don’t pray for them. ³When you pray for things, you don’t get them because you want them for the wrong reason—for your own pleasure.

⁴You unfaithful people! Don’t you know that love for this ⸤evil⸥ world is hatred toward God? Whoever wants to be a friend of this world is an enemy of God. ⁵Do you think this passage means nothing? It says, “The Spirit that lives in us wants us to be his own.”

⁶But God shows us even more kindness.^aScripture says,

“God opposes arrogant people,

but he is kind to humble people.”

⁷So place yourselves under God’s authority. Resist the devil, and he will run away from you. ⁸Come close to God, and he will come close to you. Clean up your lives, you sinners, and clear your minds, you doubters. ⁹Be miserable, mourn, and cry. Turn your laughter into mourning and your joy into gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the Lord’s presence. Then he will give you a high position.

Stop Slandering Each Other

¹¹Brothers and sisters, stop slandering each other. Those who slander and judge other believers slander and judge God’s laws. If you judge God’s teachings, you are no longer following them. Instead, you are judging them. ¹²There is only one who creates laws and judges on the basis of them. He is able to save or destroy you. So who are you to judge your neighbor?

Don’t Brag about Your Plans for the Future

¹³Pay attention to this! You’re saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go into some city, stay there a year, conduct business, and make money.” ¹⁴You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. What is life? You are a mist that is seen for a moment and then disappears. ¹⁵Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and carry out our plans.” ¹⁶However, you brag because you’re arrogant. All such bragging is evil.

¹⁷Whoever knows what is right but doesn’t do it is sinning.

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Footnotes

a 4:6 Or “grace.”