James 4
New Revised Standard Version Updated 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.(A) 4 Adulterers![b] 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.(B) 5 Or do you suppose that the scripture speaks to no purpose? Does the spirit that God caused to dwell[c] in us desire envy?(C) 6 But God gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”(D)
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.(E) 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.(F) 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.(G)
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.(H) 12 There is one lawgiver and judge[d] who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?(I)
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.”(J) 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.(K) 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”(L) 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.(M)
James 4
Jubilee Bible 2000
4 ¶ Where do the wars and disputes come from among you? Is it not from here, that is to say, of your lusts which fight in your members?
2 Ye covet and have not; ye murder, and have envy and cannot obtain; ye fight and war and have not that which ye desire because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your pleasures.
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore that desires to be a friend of the world, makes himself the enemy of God.
5 Do ye think that the scripture says in vain, The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy?
6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto 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, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9 Be afflicted and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
11 ¶ Murmur not against one another, brethren. He that speaks evil of his brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law; but if thou judge the law, thou art not a keeper of the law, but a judge.
12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou to judge another?
13 Come now, ye that say, Today and tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain;
14 and ye do not know what shall be tomorrow. For what is your life? Certainly it is a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
15 Ye ought to say instead, If the Lord wills, and if we live, we shall do this or that.
16 But now ye boast in your arrogance; all such glory is evil.
17 Therefore sin is still in the one that knows to do good and does not do it.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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