James, Chapter 4

1. Where do wars and controversies among you come from? Do they not come from this, even from your lusts that war in your members?    2. You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you do not have, because you do not ask.    3. You ask, and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, that you may consume it upon your lusts.    4. You adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore chooses to be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.    5. Do you think that the Scripture says in vain, The spirit that dwells in us is inclined to envy?    6. But he gives more grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.    7. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.    8. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.    9. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.    10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.    11. Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He that speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of 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 one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who are you that judge another?    13. Come on now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:    14. Although you do not know what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away.    15. Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live, and do this, or that.    16. But now you rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.    17. Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does not do it, to him it is sin.