Font Size
ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4
SBL Greek New Testament
ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4
SBL Greek New Testament
4 Πόθεν πόλεμοι καὶ [a]πόθεν μάχαι ἐν ὑμῖν; οὐκ ἐντεῦθεν, ἐκ τῶν ἡδονῶν ὑμῶν τῶν στρατευομένων ἐν τοῖς μέλεσιν ὑμῶν; 2 ἐπιθυμεῖτε, καὶ οὐκ ἔχετε· φονεύετε καὶ ζηλοῦτε, καὶ οὐ δύνασθε ἐπιτυχεῖν· μάχεσθε καὶ πολεμεῖτε. οὐκ ἔχετε διὰ τὸ μὴ αἰτεῖσθαι ὑμᾶς· 3 αἰτεῖτε καὶ οὐ λαμβάνετε, διότι κακῶς αἰτεῖσθε, ἵνα ἐν ταῖς ἡδοναῖς ὑμῶν δαπανήσητε. 4 [b]μοιχαλίδες, οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἡ φιλία τοῦ κόσμου ἔχθρα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν; ὃς [c]ἐὰν οὖν βουληθῇ φίλος εἶναι τοῦ κόσμου, ἐχθρὸς τοῦ θεοῦ καθίσταται. 5 ἢ δοκεῖτε ὅτι κενῶς ἡ γραφὴ λέγει· Πρὸς φθόνον ἐπιποθεῖ τὸ πνεῦμα ὃ [d]κατῴκισεν ἐν ἡμῖν; 6 μείζονα δὲ δίδωσιν χάριν· διὸ λέγει· Ὁ θεὸς ὑπερηφάνοις ἀντιτάσσεται ταπεινοῖς δὲ δίδωσιν χάριν. 7 ὑποτάγητε οὖν τῷ θεῷ· ἀντίστητε δὲ τῷ διαβόλῳ, καὶ φεύξεται ἀφ’ ὑμῶν· 8 ἐγγίσατε τῷ θεῷ, καὶ [e]ἐγγιεῖ ὑμῖν. καθαρίσατε χεῖρας, ἁμαρτωλοί, καὶ ἁγνίσατε καρδίας, δίψυχοι. 9 ταλαιπωρήσατε καὶ πενθήσατε καὶ κλαύσατε· ὁ γέλως ὑμῶν εἰς πένθος [f]μετατραπήτω καὶ ἡ χαρὰ εἰς κατήφειαν· 10 ταπεινώθητε ἐνώπιον [g]κυρίου, καὶ ὑψώσει ὑμᾶς.
11 Μὴ καταλαλεῖτε ἀλλήλων, ἀδελφοί· ὁ καταλαλῶν ἀδελφοῦ [h]ἢ κρίνων τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ καταλαλεῖ νόμου καὶ κρίνει νόμον· εἰ δὲ νόμον κρίνεις, οὐκ εἶ ποιητὴς νόμου ἀλλὰ κριτής. 12 εἷς [i]ἐστιν νομοθέτης [j]καὶ κριτής, ὁ δυνάμενος σῶσαι καὶ ἀπολέσαι· σὺ δὲ τίς εἶ, [k]ὁ κρίνων τὸν [l]πλησίον;
13 Ἄγε νῦν οἱ λέγοντες· Σήμερον [m]ἢ αὔριον [n]πορευσόμεθα εἰς τήνδε τὴν πόλιν καὶ [o]ποιήσομεν ἐκεῖ [p]ἐνιαυτὸν καὶ [q]ἐμπορευσόμεθα καὶ [r]κερδήσομεν· 14 οἵτινες οὐκ ἐπίστασθε [s]τὸ τῆς αὔριον [t]ποία ἡ ζωὴ ὑμῶν· ἀτμὶς γάρ [u]ἐστε [v]ἡ πρὸς ὀλίγον φαινομένη, [w]ἔπειτα καὶ ἀφανιζομένη· 15 ἀντὶ τοῦ λέγειν ὑμᾶς· Ἐὰν ὁ κύριος [x]θελήσῃ, καὶ [y]ζήσομεν καὶ [z]ποιήσομεν τοῦτο ἢ ἐκεῖνο. 16 νῦν δὲ καυχᾶσθε ἐν ταῖς ἀλαζονείαις ὑμῶν· πᾶσα καύχησις τοιαύτη πονηρά ἐστιν. 17 εἰδότι οὖν καλὸν ποιεῖν καὶ μὴ ποιοῦντι, ἁμαρτία αὐτῷ ἐστιν.
Footnotes
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:1 πόθεν WH Treg NIV ] – RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:4 μοιχαλίδες WH Treg NIV ] Μοιχοὶ καὶ μοιχαλίδες RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:4 ἐὰν WH NIV ] ἂν Treg RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:5 κατῴκισεν WH Treg NIV ] κατῴκησεν RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:8 ἐγγιεῖ Treg NIV RP ] ἐγγίσει WH
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:9 μετατραπήτω WH NIV ] μεταστραφήτω Treg RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:10 κυρίου WH Treg NIV ] τοῦ κυρίου RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:11 ἢ WH Treg NIV ] καὶ RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:12 ἐστιν WH ] + ὁ Treg NIV RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:12 καὶ κριτής WH Treg NIV ] – RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:12 ὁ κρίνων WH Treg NIV ] ὃς κρίνεις RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:12 πλησίον WH Treg NIV ] ἕτερον RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:13 ἢ WH Treg NIV ] καὶ RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:13 πορευσόμεθα WH Treg NIV ] πορευσώμεθα RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:13 ποιήσομεν WH NIV ] ποιήσωμεν Treg RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:13 ἐνιαυτὸν WH Treg NIV ] + ἕνα RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:13 ἐμπορευσόμεθα WH Treg NIV ] ἐμπορευσώμεθα RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:13 κερδήσομεν WH Treg NIV ] κερδήσωμεν RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:14 τὸ Treg NIV RP ] – WH
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:14 ποία WH NIV ] + γὰρ Treg RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:14 ἐστε WH Treg NIV ] ἔσται RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:14 ἡ Treg NIV RP ] – WH
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:14 ἔπειτα WH Treg NIV ] + δὲ RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:15 θελήσῃ Treg NIV RP ] θέλῃ WH
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:15 ζήσομεν WH Treg NIV ] ζήσωμεν RP
- ΙΑΚΩΒΟΥ 4:15 ποιήσομεν WH Treg NIV ] ποιήσωμεν RP
James 4
New International Version
James 4
New International Version
Submit Yourselves to God
4 What causes fights and quarrels(A) among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle(B) within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill.(C) You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive,(D) because you ask with wrong motives,(E) that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous(F) people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world(G) means enmity against God?(H) Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.(I) 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]?(J) 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil,(L) and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you.(M) Wash your hands,(N) you sinners, and purify your hearts,(O) you double-minded.(P) 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.(Q) 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.(R)
11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another.(S) Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[d] or judges them(T) speaks against the law(U) and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it,(V) but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge,(W) the one who is able to save and destroy.(X) But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?(Y)
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Now listen,(Z) you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”(AA) 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.(AB) 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will,(AC) we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.(AD) 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.(AE)
Footnotes
- James 4:4 An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.
- James 4:5 Or that the spirit he caused to dwell in us envies intensely; or that the Spirit he caused to dwell in us longs jealously
- James 4:6 Prov. 3:34
- James 4:11 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family.
James 4
Good News Translation
James 4
Good News Translation
Friendship with the World
4 Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you. 2 You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it. 3 And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures. 4 Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy. 5 Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, “The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires.”[a] 6 (A)But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you. 8 Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites! 9 Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom! 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Warning against Judging One Another
11 Do not criticize one another, my friends. If you criticize or judge another Christian, you criticize and judge the Law. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it. 12 God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are, to judge someone else?
Warning against Boasting
13 (B)Now listen to me, you that say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money.” 14 You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears. 15 What you should say is this: “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong.
17 So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin.
Footnotes
- James 4:5 The spirit … fierce desires; or God yearns jealously over the spirit that he placed in us.
James 4
J.B. Phillips New Testament
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.
James 4
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition
James 4
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition
Friendship with the World
4 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet[a] something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God[b] yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? 6 But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.’
7 Submit yourselves 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 Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Warning against Judging Another
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters.[c] Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, 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 one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbour?
Boasting about Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.
Footnotes
- James 4:2 Or you murder and you covet
- James 4:5 Gk He
- James 4:11 Gk brothers
SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
Scripture quotations marked SBLGNT are from the The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition. Copyright © 2010 by Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software
New International Version (NIV) 
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.
Good News Translation (GNT) 
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)
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.
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition (NRSVACE)
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.