James 4

English Standard Version

Warning Against Worldliness

4 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions^[a] are ^(A)at war within you?^{[b] 2} You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask ^(B)wrongly, to spend it on your passions. ^4 (C)You adulterous people!^[c] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? ^(D)Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit ^(E)that he has made to dwell in us”? ⁶ But ^(F)he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ^(G)“God opposes the proud but ^(H)gives grace to the humble.” ⁷ Submit yourselves therefore to God. ^(I)Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ^8 (J)Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. ^(K)Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and ^(L)purify your hearts, ^(M)you double-minded. ^9 (N)Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ^10 (O)Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

^11 (P)Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.^[d] The one who speaks against a brother or ^(Q)judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹² There is only ^(R)one lawgiver and ^(S)judge, he who is able to save and ^(T)to destroy. But ^(U)who are you to judge your neighbor?

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Come now, you who say, ^(V)“Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For ^(W)you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, ^(X)“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. ^(Y)All such boasting is evil. ^17 (Z)So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.