James 4

¹What [causes] conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t [they] [come] from [the] passions at war within you?

²You crave [what] {you do} not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain [it]. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you {do} not ask.

³[And when] you do ask, {you do} not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander [it] on your pleasures.

⁴[You] adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility [toward] God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.

⁵Or do you think the Scripture says without reason [that] the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy?

⁶But He gives [us] more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes [the] proud, but gives grace to [the] humble.”

⁷Submit yourselves, then, 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] double-minded.

⁹Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and [your] joy to gloom.

¹⁰Humble yourselves before [the] Lord, and He will exalt you.

¹¹Brothers, {do] not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against [his] brother or judges [him] speaks against [the] law and judges [it]. And if you judge [the] law, you are not a practitioner of [the] law, but a judge [of it].

¹²There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the [One who] is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge [your] neighbor?

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”

¹⁴You 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.

¹⁵Instead, you [ought] to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”

¹⁶As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.

¹⁷Anyone, then, who knows [the] right thing to do, yet fails to do [it], is guilty of sin.