James 4
4
Against Worldliness
1 From where come* wars and from where come* quarrels among you? Is it not from this: from your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You desire and do not have; you murder and covet, and you cannot obtain. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses!* Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says meaninglessly, “He jealously yearns for the spirit whom He has caused to dwell in us?” 6 But He gives greater grace. Therefore, it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you.
A Call to Sinners to Humble Themselves Before God
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Realise your misery and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to deep sorrow. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Not Speaking Against One Another
11 Do not speak against one another, brothers. The one 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 of the law. 12 There is one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbour?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there, and conduct business and earn a profit”— 14 you who do not know what tomorrow holds*—what is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears. 15 On the contrary, you ought* to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, for one who knows the good thing he ought* to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
Notes
1 The base verb come is supplied to the text based on context for the sake of clarity
4 Or You adulterous people
14 Greek you do not know that which is of tomorrow
15 The modal auxiliary verb phrase you ought is supplied to the text based on context for the sake of clarity
17 The modal auxiliary verb phrase he ought is supplied to the text based on context for the sake of clarity
Currently Selected:
James 4: AFINTLIT
Highlight
Copy
Compare
Share
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Copyright © 2026 Michael Adeyemi Adegbola. This Scripture text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
