Things to Avoid

4 ^[a]What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? ^[b]Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? ² You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask ^[c]with wrong motives, so that you may spend it ^[d]on your pleasures. ⁴ You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “^[e]He ^[f]jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? ⁶ But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” ⁷ Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

¹¹ Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but 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; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” ^14 [g]Yet you do not know ^[h]what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. ^15 [i]Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” ¹⁶ But as it is, you boast in your ^[j]arrogance; all such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ Therefore, to one who knows the ^[k]right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.