James 4
Amplified Bible
Things to Avoid
4 What leads to [the unending] [a]quarrels and conflicts among you? Do they not come from your [hedonistic] desires that wage war in your [bodily] members [fighting for control over you]? 2 You are jealous and covet [what others have] and [b]your lust goes unfulfilled; so you [c]murder. You are envious and cannot obtain [the object of your envy]; so you fight and battle. You do not have because you do not ask [it of God].(A) 3 You ask [God for something] and do not receive it, because you ask [d]with wrong motives [out of selfishness or with an unrighteous agenda], so that [when you get what you want] you may spend it on your [hedonistic] desires. 4 You adulteresses [disloyal sinners—flirting with the world and breaking your vow to God]! Do you not know that being the world’s friend [that is, loving the things of the world] is being God’s enemy? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose [e]that the [human] spirit which He has made to dwell in us lusts with envy?(B) 6 But He gives us more and more grace [through the power of the Holy Spirit to defy sin and live an obedient life that reflects both our faith and our gratitude for our salvation]. Therefore, it says, “God is opposed to the proud and haughty, but [continually] gives [the gift of] grace to the humble [who turn away from self-righteousness].”(C) 7 So submit to [the authority of] God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him] and he will flee from you. 8 Come close to God [with a contrite heart] and He will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; and purify your [unfaithful] hearts, you double-minded [people]. 9 Be miserable and grieve and weep [over your sin]. Let your [foolish] laughter be turned to mourning and your [reckless] joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves [with an attitude of repentance and insignificance] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up, He will give you purpose].
11 Believers, do not speak against or slander one another. He who speaks [self-righteously] against a brother or [f]judges his brother [hypocritically], speaks against the Law and judges the Law. If you judge the Law, you are not a doer of the Law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy [the one God who has the absolute power of life and death]; but who are you to [hypocritically or self-righteously] pass judgment on your neighbor?
13 Come now [and pay attention to this], you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and carry on our business and make a profit.” 14 [g]Yet you do not know [the least thing] [h]about what may happen in your life tomorrow. [What is secure in your life?] You are merely a vapor [like a puff of smoke or a wisp of steam from a cooking pot] that is visible for a little while and then vanishes [into thin air]. 15 Instead [i]you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and we will do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast [vainly] in your pretension and arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So any person who knows what is right to do but does not do it, to him it is sin.
Footnotes
- James 4:1 Lit wars.
- James 4:2 Lit you do not have.
- James 4:2 Possibly a reference to Christ’s statement in Matt 5:22, or to actually doing something that results in someone’s death in order to take what he has.
- James 4:3 Lit wrongly.
- James 4:5 This verse is difficult to translate, and it seems that James is paraphrasing or generalizing a scriptural concept rather than quoting directly from the Old Testament.
- James 4:11 This is not a prohibition of all judgment, nor is it a command to stop using godly wisdom, common sense, and moral courage together with God’s written word to discern right from wrong, to distinguish between morality and immorality, and to judge doctrinal truth. There are many judgments that are not only legitimate, but are commanded (cf John 7:24; 1 Cor 5:5, 12; Gal 1:8, 9; 1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 10); however, you cannot judge another if you are committing the same type of sin.
- James 4:14 Lit Who do not.
- James 4:14 Lit what sort your life will be.
- James 4:15 Lit of your saying.
James 4
Easy-to-Read Version
Give Yourselves to God
4 Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that make war inside you. 2 You want things, but you don’t get them. So you kill and are jealous of others. But you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You don’t get what you want because you don’t ask God. 3 Or when you ask, you don’t receive anything, because the reason you ask is wrong. You only want to use it for your own pleasure.
4 You people are not faithful to God! You should know that loving what the world has is the same as hating God. So anyone who wants to be friends with this evil world becomes God’s enemy. 5 Do you think the Scriptures mean nothing? The Scriptures say, “The Spirit God made to live in us wants us only for himself.”[a] 6 But the kindness God shows is greater. As the Scripture says, “God is against the proud, but he is kind to the humble.”[b]
7 So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil, and he will run away from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. You are sinners, so clean sin out of your lives.[c] You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure. 9 Be sad, be sorry, and cry! Change your laughter into crying. Change your joy into sadness. 10 Be humble before the Lord, and he will make you great.
You Are Not the Judge
11 Brothers and sisters, don’t say anything against each other. If you criticize your brother or sister in Christ or judge them, you are criticizing and judging the law they follow. And when you are judging the law, you are not a follower of the law. You have become a judge. 12 God is the one who gave us the law, and he is the Judge. He is the only one who can save and destroy. So it is not right for you to judge anyone.
Let God Plan Your Life
13 Some of you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money.” Listen, think about this: 14 You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a fog. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away. 15 So you should say, “If the Lord wants, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But now you are proud and boast about yourself. All such boasting is wrong. 17 If you fail to do what you know is right, you are sinning.
Footnotes
- James 4:5 “The Spirit … himself” Other possible translations: “God strongly desires the spirit that he made to live in us.” Or “The spirit that he made to live in us is full of envious desires.” See Ex. 20:5.
- James 4:6
Quote from Prov. 3:34. - James 4:8 so clean sin out of your lives Literally, “so wash your hands.”
James 4
J.B. Phillips New Testament
Your jealousies spring from love of what the world can give you
4 1-3 But about the feuds and struggles that exist among you—where do you suppose they come from? Can’t you see that they arise from conflicting passions within yourselves? You crave for something and don’t get it, you are jealous and envious of what others have got and you don’t possess it yourselves. Consequently in your exasperated frustration you struggle and fight with one another. You don’t get what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And when you do ask he doesn’t give it to you, for you ask in quite the wrong spirit—you only want to satisfy your own desires.
4-6 You are like unfaithful wives, flirting with the glamour of this world, and never realising that to be the world’s lover means becoming the enemy of God! Anyone who deliberately chooses to love the world is thereby making himself God’s enemy. Do you think what the scriptures have to say about this is a mere formality? Or do you imagine that this spirit of passionate jealousy is the Spirit he has caused to live in us? No, he gives us grace potent enough to meet this and every other evil spirit, if we are humble enough to receive it. That is why he says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’
You should be humble, not proud
7 Be humble then before God. but resist the devil and you’ll find he’ll run away from you.
8-10 Come close to God and he will come close to you. Realise that you have sinned and get your hands clean again. Realise that you have been disloyal and get your hearts made true once more. As you come close to God you should be deeply sorry, you should be grieved, you should even be in tears. Your laughter will have to become mourning, your high spirits will have to become heartfelt dejection. You will have to feel very small in the sight of God before he will set you on your feet once more.
It is for God to judge, not for us
11-12 Never pull each other to pieces, my brothers. If you do you are judging your brother and setting yourself up in the place of God’s Law; you have become in fact a critic of the Law. Yet if you start to criticise the Law instead of obeying it you are setting yourself up as judge, and there is only one judge, the one who gave the Law, to whom belongs absolute power of life and death. How can you then be so silly as to imagine that you are your neighbour’s judge?
It is still true that man proposes, but God disposes
13-17 Just a moment, now, you who say, “We are going to such-and-such a city today or tomorrow. We shall stay there a year doing business and make a profit”! How do you know what will happen even tomorrow? What, after all, is your life? It is like a puff of smoke visible for a little while and then dissolving into thin air. Your remarks should be prefaced with, “If it is the Lord’s will, we shall be alive and will do so-and-so.” As it is, you get a certain pride in yourself in planning your future with such confidence. That sort of pride is all wrong. No doubt you agree with the above in theory. Well, remember that if a man knows what is right and fails to do it, his failure is a real sin.
Santiago 4
Nueva Biblia de las Américas
Guerras y conflictos
4 ¿De dónde vienen las guerras y los conflictos[a] entre ustedes(A)? ¿No vienen de las pasiones[b] que combaten en sus miembros(B)? 2 Ustedes codician y no tienen, por eso cometen homicidio(C). Son envidiosos y no pueden obtener, por eso combaten[c] y hacen guerra. No tienen, porque no piden. 3 Piden y no reciben(D), porque piden con malos propósitos[d], para gastarlo en sus placeres.
4 ¡Oh almas adúlteras[e](E)! ¿No saben ustedes que la amistad del mundo(F) es enemistad hacia Dios(G)? Por tanto, el que quiere ser amigo del mundo, se constituye enemigo de Dios(H). 5 ¿O piensan que la Escritura dice en vano(I): «Dios celosamente anhela[f] el Espíritu(J) que ha hecho morar en nosotros?». 6 Pero Él da mayor gracia(K). Por eso dice: «Dios resiste a los soberbios, pero da gracia a los humildes(L)». 7 Por tanto, sométanse a Dios(M). Resistan, pues, al diablo y huirá de ustedes(N).
8 Acérquense a Dios, y Él se acercará a ustedes(O). Limpien sus manos(P), pecadores; y ustedes de doble ánimo[g](Q), purifiquen sus corazones(R). 9 Aflíjanse, laméntense y lloren(S). Que su risa se convierta en lamento y su gozo en tristeza. 10 Humíllense en la presencia del Señor(T) y Él los exaltará.
11 Hermanos(U), no hablen mal los unos de los otros(V). El que habla mal de un hermano o juzga a su hermano(W), habla mal de la ley(X) y juzga a la ley. Pero si tú juzgas a la ley, no eres cumplidor de la ley(Y), sino juez de ella. 12 Solo hay un Legislador y Juez(Z), que es poderoso para salvar y para destruir(AA). Pero tú, ¿quién eres que juzgas a tu prójimo(AB)?
La incertidumbre de la vida
13 Oigan[h] ahora(AC), ustedes que dicen: «Hoy o mañana iremos a tal o cual ciudad(AD) y pasaremos allá un año, haremos negocio y tendremos ganancia». 14 Sin embargo, ustedes no saben[i] cómo será su vida mañana. Solo son un vapor que aparece por un poco de tiempo y luego se desvanece(AE).
15 Más bien, debieran decir[j]: Si el Señor quiere(AF), viviremos y haremos esto o aquello. 16 Pero ahora se jactan en su arrogancia[k]. Toda jactancia semejante es mala(AG). 17 A aquel, pues, que sabe hacer lo bueno[l] y no lo hace(AH), le es pecado.
Footnotes
- Santiago 4:1 Lit. ¿De dónde guerras, y de dónde conflictos.
- Santiago 4:1 Lit. ¿No de aquí, de sus placeres.
- Santiago 4:2 O tienen pleitos.
- Santiago 4:3 Lit. malvadamente.
- Santiago 4:4 O infieles.
- Santiago 4:5 Lit. anhela hasta los celos.
- Santiago 4:8 O que dudan.
- Santiago 4:13 Lit. Vamos.
- Santiago 4:14 Lit. Los que no saben.
- Santiago 4:15 Lit. en lugar de decir.
- Santiago 4:16 O sus pretensiones.
- Santiago 4:17 O lo correcto.
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Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International
The New Testament in Modern English by J.B Phillips copyright © 1960, 1972 J. B. Phillips. Administered by The Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England. Used by Permission.
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