4 What is causing all the quarrels and fights among you? Isn’t it your desires battling inside you? ² You desire things and don’t have them. You kill, and you are jealous, and you still can’t get them. So you fight and quarrel. The reason you don’t have is that you don’t pray! ³ Or you pray and don’t receive, because you pray with the wrong motive, that of wanting to indulge your own desires.

⁴ You unfaithful wives! Don’t you know that loving the world is hating God? Whoever chooses to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy! ⁵ Or do you suppose the Scripture speaks in vain when it says that there is a spirit in us which longs to envy? ⁶ But the grace he gives is greater, which is why it says,

⁷ Therefore, submit to God. Moreover, take a stand against the Adversary, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come close to God, and he will come close to you. Clean your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded people! ⁹ Wail, mourn, sob! Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom! ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

¹¹ Brothers, stop speaking against each other! Whoever speaks against a brother or judges a brother is speaking against Torah and judging Torah. And if you judge Torah, you are not a doer of what Torah says, but a judge. ¹² There is but one Giver of Torah; he is also the Judge, with the power to deliver and to destroy. Who do you think you are, judging your fellow human being?

²¹ Indeed, this is what you were called to; because the Messiah too suffered, on your behalf, leaving an example so that you should follow in his steps.

²³ When he was insulted, he didn’t retaliate with insults; when he suffered, he didn’t threaten, but handed them over to him who judges justly. ²⁴ He himself bore our sins^[b] in his body on the stake,^[c] so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness — by his wounds you were healed.^[d]

²⁰ For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P’rushim, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!

²¹ “You have heard that our fathers were told, ‘Do not murder,’^[a] and that anyone who commits murder will be subject to judgment. ²² But I tell you that anyone who nurses anger against his brother will be subject to judgment; that whoever calls his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing!’ will be brought before the Sanhedrin; that whoever says, ‘Fool!’ incurs the penalty of burning in the fire of Gei-Hinnom! ²³ So if you are offering your gift at the Temple altar and you remember there that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift where it is by the altar, and go, make peace with your brother. Then come back and offer your gift.