James 4:6-17

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁶ But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says,

⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.^{(B) 8} Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.^{(C) 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.^(D)

Warning against Judging Another

¹¹ Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. 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.^{(E) 12} There is one lawgiver and judge^[a] who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?^(F)

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.”^{(G) 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.^{(H) 15} Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”^{(I) 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.^(J)