James 4:7-17

English Standard Version

⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. ^(A)Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ^8 (B)Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. ^(C)Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and ^(D)purify your hearts, ^(E)you double-minded. ^9 (F)Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ^10 (G)Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

^11 (H)Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.^[a] The one who speaks against a brother or ^(I)judges 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. ¹² There is only ^(J)one lawgiver and ^(K)judge, he who is able to save and ^(L)to destroy. But ^(M)who are you to judge your neighbor?

Boasting About Tomorrow

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