New Testament · James

James 4

A Warning against Pride

1What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this — your pleasures that are at war in your members? 2You crave^a and do not have, so you murder; you are jealous and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel; you do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your pleasures.

4You adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you think the scripture says in vain, "He yearns jealously over the spirit^c that He has caused to dwell in us"?^b 6But He gives more grace^d; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

Drawing Near to God

7Submit therefore to God; but resist the devil^e, 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^f, you double-minded ones. 9Be wretched and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy^g to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

11Do not speak evil against one another, brothers; the one who speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the lawⁱ and judges the law — and if you judge^hj the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12There is only one Lawgiver — the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you to judge another?

Do Not Boast about Tomorrow

(Proverbs 27:1)

13Come now, you who say, "Today and tomorrow we will go into such-and-such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" — 14yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring; for what is your life^k? For it is a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

15Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.