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Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

A reading plan that walks through the entire New Testament in 24 weeks of daily readings.

Duration: 168 days

James 4-5

Chapter 4

The Need To Control Passions.^[a] ¹What is the source of these conflicts and quarrels among you? Are they not the result of your passions^[b] that are at war within you? ²You want something that you cannot have, so you commit murder. And you covet something but cannot obtain it, so you engage in quarrels and fights. You do not have because you do not ask. ³When you ask, you do not get what you want because you do not ask for it with the proper motives, seeking rather to indulge your passions.

⁴Adulterers! Do you not know that love of the world results in enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you suppose that it is without reason that Scripture says, “He yearns jealously for the Spirit that he sent to live in us”?^[c] ⁶But he has bestowed an even stronger grace. Therefore, it says,

“God resists the proud,
but he gives grace to the humble.”

⁷Hence, be subject to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you waverers. ⁹Be sorrowful, lament, and weep. Let your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

¹¹Do Not Judge Others.^[d] Do not slander one another, my brethren. Whoever speaks ill of a brother or passes judgment on a brother speaks ill of the Law and passes judgment on the Law. But if you judge the Law, you are not keeping it but passing judgment upon it. ¹²There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save or to destroy. Who then are you to pass judgment on a neighbor?

¹³A Warning against Presumption.^[e] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall head off to this or that town and spend a year doing business there and making money.” ¹⁴Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life, after all? For you are like a mist that appears for a brief time and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead, what you ought to say is, “If it is the Lord’s will, we shall live to do this or that.” ¹⁶But instead you boast in your arrogance, and all such boasting is evil. ¹⁷Anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits a sin.

Chapter 5

Woe to the Rich.^[f] ¹Come now, you who are rich. Lament and weep over the miseries that will soon overwhelm you. ²Your riches have rotted. Your clothes are all moth-eaten. ³Your gold and silver have corroded. Their corrosion will serve as a witness against you and consume your flesh like a fire. You have hoarded wealth for the last days.

⁴Behold, the wages you fraudulently withheld from the laborers who harvested your fields are crying out, and the cries of those harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. ⁵You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have gorged yourselves as on the day of slaughter. ⁶You have condemned the righteous man and murdered him, even though he offered you no resistance.

Patience, for the Lord’s Coming Is Near.^[g] ⁷Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Think of how patiently a farmer awaits the precious crop from his fields until they have received the early and the late rains. ⁸You too must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near.^[h]

⁹Brethren, do not raise complaints against one another lest you yourselves be brought to judgment. Behold, the Judge is standing at the gates.

¹⁰As an example of patience in enduring hardship, brethren, consider the Prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. ¹¹Indeed, those who had perseverance are the ones we call blessed. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and have come to understand the Lord’s purpose in this respect, because the Lord is merciful and compassionate.

¹²Do Not Swear. Above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth, or use any oaths at all. Let your “Yes” mean “Yes” and your “No” mean “No.” Otherwise you may be condemned.^[i]

¹³Anointing of the Sick.^[j]Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing songs of praise. ¹⁴Is anyone among you sick? He should send for the presbyters of the Church so that they may pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.

¹⁶Confession and Intercession. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

¹⁷Elijah was a man like us. Yet when he prayed fervently that it might not rain for three and a half years, it did not rain on the earth. ¹⁸Then he prayed again, and the heavens gave forth rain, and the earth once again brought forth its harvest.

Conclusion

¹⁹The Peace of Fraternal Love.^[k] My brethren, if one of you should stray from the truth and another succeeds in bringing him back, ²⁰remember this: A person who brings back a sinner from erring ways will rescue his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Footnotes

James 4:1 Troubles, unjust and murderous confrontations, and wars are the scourges of social life, and Christians share in them. Murderous passions are given free rein even in the community, creating antagonisms and divisions. The desire to possess and to monopolize things seems to be without limits and takes over the human heart. Hence, let all Christians question themselves about their innermost affiliation and choice. Do they really opt for God or do they live under the weight of their evil passions? When someone became unfaithful to God in the concrete, the Old Testament as well as Christ designated it as adultery (see Hos 3:1; Mt 12:39; 16:4). All these evils are the result of a failure to pray. True prayer is a drawing near to God, and it requires a reversal of mentality.
James 4:1 Passions: literally, “pleasures.” The author is not saying that pleasures are evil in themselves; the evil consists only in the way they are used.
James 4:5 He yearns jealously for the Spirit that he sent to live in us: two other translations are possible (because James is citing a passage that does not appear in any extant Bible manuscript):
“The spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely” and “The Spirit he caused to live in us longs jealously.” The meaning of the translation in the text is that God jealously longs for our fidelity and love (see Jn 4:4). The meaning of the first alternative translation is that because of the fall the spirit of man that was put in us at the Creation (see Gen 2:7) envies intensely—however, God’s grace is able to overcome that envy (see Ex 20:5). The meaning of the second alternative translation is that it is the Holy Spirit who longs jealously for our full devotion.
James 4:11 Nothing is more current in the thoughts and conversations of human beings than passing judgment on others and slandering them. This is a usurpation. Only God can pass judgment, and it is he who has established a law—the law of love (see Lev 19:16-18; Mt 7:1-5).
James 4:13 This is a warning to those people who live only for the glory of their projects, the exploitation of others, and the lure of gain (see Mk 8:36). It reproduces the theme of human weakness (see Pss 39:5-7, 11; 102:3; Wis 2:4; 5:9-14), which obliges people to put their trust solely in God and not in self.
James 5:1 Here, we hear again the cries of the Prophets denouncing the injustice and inhumanity of riches (see Isa 5:8-10; Jer 5:26-30; Am 8:4-8); we also hear the voice of Christ placing us on guard against the danger of riches (see Lk 6:24; 18:24-27). The Bible has always seen the accumulation of goods as tarnished by some injustice. It instinctively feels how riches give birth to a type of person whose sense of his own human condition becomes warped and who loses sight of the proper relationship of fraternity and justice in regard to others.
James 5:7 For the Old Testament as well as for the New, the life of believers tends toward the final encounter with the Lord. The future of human beings does not rest in any terrestrial value in an absolute manner. It rests in God.
James 5:8 The expectation of the Lord’s Second Coming (see 1 Cor 15:23) is the ultimate basis for Christian patience (see Jas 1:2—4:12; 1 Thes 3:13; 1 Pet 4:7; 5:10).
James 5:12 The Sermon on the Mount gives us the same recommendation in the same terms (see Mt 5:34-37).
James 5:13 The Church was to pay special attention to the sick. Catholic tradition sees in this passage a testimony to the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. It was with an appeal to it that Pope Innocent I (in his Letter of March 19, 416, to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio) justified the rite used in the Church and declared it to be a “Sacrament”; this doctrine was later solemnly defined by the Council of Trent despite the opposition of the Protestants (Session 14, November 25, 1551).
The reference to prayer ends with the example of Elijah. The Jewish tradition was familiar with several examples of Prophets who had interceded for the people (see Gen 18:22-32; Ex 32:11-14, 30-32). Elijah was a very popular figure both in Jewish tradition and in the early Christian tradition (which identified the coming Elijah with John the Baptist).
James 5:19 James regards the return of a straying brother to the truth as a real rescue from death (see Mt 18:12-13; 1 Jn 5:16). It would seem that the sins “covered,” i.e., forgiven, are those of the brother who had gone astray (see 1 Pet 4:8) rather than those of the brother who brings him back to the truth (see Ezek 3:20-21; 1 Tim 4:16). In speaking of a “multitude of sins” James is perhaps including the sins of both (see Jas 2:13).

New Catholic Bible (NCB)