Read the New Testament in 24 Weeks

Do not turn away from God

4 You fight and quarrel among yourselves. Do you know why that happens? It is because of the troubles in your thoughts. You want to do bad things that you think will make you happy. ² You want to have something for yourself, but you do not get what you want. You even kill other people. You try to take things that are not yours. But you cannot get them. So you fight and you quarrel with each other. But you do not have these things because you do not ask God for them. ³ Even when you do ask God, you do not receive anything. That is because you ask for the wrong reason. You just want to use these things to make yourselves happy.

⁴ You are turning away from God, like a woman who is not faithful to her husband. You choose to be friends with people who are against God. So you yourselves become enemies of God. You should know that! ⁵ The Bible says, ‘God has caused his Spirit to live in us. He wants very much to keep us for himself.’ Do you think that is not true? ⁶ But God will be very kind to us and he will help us. That is why the Bible says, ‘God is against those people who think that they are important. But he is kind to people who do not feel important.’ ⁷ So obey God's authority. Be strong against the Devil and he will run away from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Be clean in the way that you live. Stop doing wrong things. Make your minds clean. You cannot love sin and love God at the same time. ⁹ Be sorry about your sins and weep. Stop laughing and instead be sad. Do not be happy but be very upset.

¹⁰ Be humble in front of the Lord God. Then he will lift you up to a good place.

¹¹ My Christian friends, do not say bad things against each other. If you speak against another believer, you are really speaking against God's Law. If you judge another believer, then you are judging the law too. When you do that, you are not obeying the Law. You are giving yourself authority to decide what the Law says. ¹² God is the one who gave his Law to people. Only he has the authority to judge whether people have done what is right. Only he can decide to save people or to destroy them. So you must not judge your friends. You do not have that authority.

Trust God every day

¹³ Some of you say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will stay there for a year. We will buy and sell things, and we will become rich.’ If you say things like that, listen to me. ¹⁴ You do not know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a cloud which appears for a short time and then it quickly goes away. ¹⁵ So what you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord agrees and we are still alive, then we will do this or that.’ ¹⁶ But instead, you talk about what you have decided to do. You speak as if you have the power to make it happen. It is wrong to speak like that.

¹⁷ So you know the right thing that you ought to do. But if you know that and you do not do the right thing, then you have done a wrong thing.

Troubles for rich people

5 Now, listen to me, you rich people. Weep and cry aloud, because many troubles will soon happen to you. ² Your money no longer has any value. Insects have eaten your beautiful clothes and they have spoiled them. ³ You have stored silver and gold coins to spend for yourselves. But dirt has spoiled those coins. That dirt will show that you are guilty. It will become like fire that is burning your bodies. In the last days of this world you have stored all this money for yourselves. ⁴ But you have not paid the workers in your fields the money that you should have paid them. You have cheated them. Now they are shouting against you. The Lord of great power has heard them when they cry to him for help. ⁵ During your life here on this earth, you have had all that you wanted. You have lived like kings. You have eaten as much food as you want. So now you are like fat animals that are ready for men to kill. ⁶ You say that a righteous person is guilty. You have even killed him and he could not stop you.

Be patient until the Lord comes again

⁷ So, my Christian friends, be patient until the Lord Jesus returns. Think about how a farmer is patient. He waits for the ground to give him valuable food to eat. He waits patiently for the rain to come in the autumn and in the spring. ⁸ You also must be patient, because the Lord will return soon. Be strong as you continue to trust him.

⁹ My Christian friends, do not complain against each other. If you do, God will punish you. So be careful! He is the Judge and he is ready now to judge people.

¹⁰ Think about how God's prophets were also patient. They spoke messages on behalf of the Lord. Many troubles happened to them but they were patient. So, my Christian friends, you should copy their example. ¹¹ We know that God blessed people who were like that. They continued to trust God when trouble happened to them. You have heard about Job. He waited patiently for God to help him in his troubles. You know how the Lord helped him in the end. Because of that, we see that the Lord God is very kind and he helps us.

¹² Here is another important thing to remember, my Christian friends. When you want to make a strong promise, never use extra words. Do not say, ‘I promise by heaven,’ or ‘I promise by the earth.’ Do not use any extra words like that. When you say ‘yes,’ that should be enough. When you say ‘no,’ that should also be enough. If you say more than that, God will say that you are guilty.

Prayer

¹³ Is anyone among you in trouble? Then they should pray to God about it. Or, is anyone feeling happy? They should praise God with songs. ¹⁴ Is anyone ill? They should ask the leaders of the church to come and to pray for them. The leaders should put some olive oil on the sick person. They should pray for him with the authority of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁵ If they pray in that way and they trust that God will answer them, the sick person will become well again. The Lord will cause him to become well. And God will forgive him if he has done any wrong things.

¹⁶ So you should tell each other about any wrong things that you have done. Then you will be able to pray for each other, so that God makes you well again. When a good person prays to God, God does powerful things. ¹⁷ For example, God's prophet Elijah was an ordinary person, as we are. He prayed to God that it would not rain. He continued to pray and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. ¹⁸ After that time, he prayed to God to send rain again. After that, rain came down from the sky. The seeds that were in the ground began to grow and give food for people to eat.

¹⁹ My Christian friends, if anyone among you turns away from God's true message, you should help him. Try to bring him back to God. ²⁰ Understand this: if you turn a person back from their bad ways, you will save them from death. And God will forgive that person for his many sins.