4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
4:2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God.
4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4:4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
4:5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?
4:6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
4:8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
4:9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
4:11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.
4:12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you–who are you to judge your neighbor?
4:13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”
4:14 Why, you 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.
4:15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
4:16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
4:17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
4:1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Are they not from this, from your pleasures that war in your members?
4:2 You lust and do not have; you murder and are jealous and are not able to obtain; you fight and make war. You do not have because you do not ask;
4:3 You ask and do not receive because you ask evilly that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4:4 Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever determines to be a friend of the world is constituted an enemy of God.
4:5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain: The Spirit, whom He has caused to dwell in us, longs unto envy?
4:6 But He gives greater grace; therefore it says, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
4:7 Be subject therefore to God; but withstand the devil, and he will flee from you.
4:8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-souled!
4:9 Endure misery and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into dejection.
4:10 Be humbled before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
4:11 Do not speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
4:12 One is Lawgiver and Judge, who is able to save and destroy. But who are you who judge your neighbor?
4:13 Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit;
4:14 Whereas you do not know the matter of tomorrow, what your life will be; for you are a vapor, which appears for a little while and then disappears.
4:15 Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will both live and do this or that.
4:16 But now you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
4:17 Therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.