James 4

1Where do wars and fights among you come from? Do they not come hence from your pleasures that war in your members?

2You covet, and do not have. You murder and envy, and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. 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.

4Adulteresses, don't you know that the world's friendship is enmity toward God? Therefore, whoever wants to be the world's friend makes himself God's enemy.

5Or do you suppose that Scripture speaks in vain, "The Spirit he caused to dwell in us yearns enviously"?

6But he bestows greater grace. Therefore it declares, "God opposes the proud, but grants grace to the humble."

7Therefore, submit to God, but resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, double-minded.

9Be miserable, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter change into mourning, and your joy into gloom.

10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11Brothers, do not slander each other. Whoever slanders a brother or judges his brother slanders the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

12One is the lawgiver and judge, able to save and to destroy. But who are you, the one who judges the neighbor?

13Come now, those who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this city, spend a year there, trade, and make gain."

14You who do not know what your life will be like tomorrow—for you are a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes.

15Instead of saying, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

16But now you boast in your boastings. All such boasting is evil.

17Therefore whoever knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.