4From where are conflicts and from where are quarrels among you? Is it not from this, from your pleasures that wage war among your members? ²You desire and do not have; you murder and are filled with envy, and are not able to obtain; you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, in order that you may spend it on your pleasures.

⁴Adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you think that in vain the scripture says, “The spirit which he caused to dwell in us desires jealously”?^a ⁶But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says,

“God opposes the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.”^b

⁷Therefore subject yourselves to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded! ⁹Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your^* joy to gloominess. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

¹¹Do not speak evil of one another, brothers. The one who speaks evil of a brother or judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of the law.^c ¹²There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your^* neighbor?

Arrogant Boasting About the Future

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there, and carry on business and make a profit,” ¹⁴you who do not know what will happen tomorrow^d, what your life will be like^e. For you are a smoky vapor that appears for a short time and then disappears. ¹⁵Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷Therefore, to the one who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

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Footnotes

aThis translation takes “spirit” to be the capacity within people that produces a divided mind and conflicts regarding God; other translations take this to refer to the Holy Spirit: “He (God) jealously desires the Spirit which he caused to dwell in us”
bA quotation from Prov 3:34
*Literally “the”; the Greek article is used here as a possessive pronoun
cThe words “of the law” are not in the Greek text, but are an understood repetition from the previous clause
*Literally “the”; the Greek article is used here as a possessive pronoun
dLiterally “the circumstance of tomorrow”
eLiterally “of what sort your life”