James 4
4
Stop Fighting with Each Other
1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Aren’t they caused by the selfish desires that fight to control you? 2You want what you don’t have, so you commit murder. You’re determined to have things, but you can’t get what you want. You quarrel and fight. You don’t have the things you want, because you don’t pray for them. 3When you pray for things, you don’t get them because you want them for the wrong reason—for your own pleasure.
4You unfaithful people! Don’t you know that love for this ⌞evil⌟ world is hatred toward God? Whoever wants to be a friend of this world is an enemy of God. 5Do you think this passage means nothing? It says, “The Spirit that lives in us wants us to be his own.”
6But God shows us even more kindness.#4:6 Or “grace.” Scripture says,
“God opposes arrogant people,
but he is kind to humble people.”
7So place yourselves under God’s authority. Resist the devil, and he will run away from you. 8Come close to God, and he will come close to you. Clean up your lives, you sinners, and clear your minds, you doubters. 9Be miserable, mourn, and cry. Turn your laughter into mourning and your joy into gloom. 10Humble yourselves in the Lord’s presence. Then he will give you a high position.
Stop Slandering Each Other
11Brothers and sisters, stop slandering each other. Those who slander and judge other believers slander and judge God’s laws. If you judge God’s teachings, you are no longer following them. Instead, you are judging them. 12There is only one who creates laws and judges on the basis of them. He is able to save or destroy you. So who are you to judge your neighbor?
Don’t Brag about Your Plans for the Future
13Pay attention to this! You’re saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go into some city, stay there a year, conduct business, and make money.” 14You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. What is life? You are a mist that is seen for a moment and then disappears. 15Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and carry out our plans.” 16However, you brag because you’re arrogant. All such bragging is evil.
17Whoever knows what is right but doesn’t do it is sinning.
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James 4: GW
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GOD'S WORD® Translation ©1995, 2003, 2013, 2014, 2019, 2020 by God's Word to the Nations Mission Society. All rights reserved.
James 4
4
1Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members? 2Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. 3Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures. 4Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God. 5Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying? 6But he giveth more grace. Wherefore the scripture saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. 7Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded. 9Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you.
11Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12One only is the lawgiver and judge, even he who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou that judgest thy neighbour? 13Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: 14whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. 16But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil. 17To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
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