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.
Jacob (James) 4
4
Resist Pride and Evil
1Where do quarrels and conflicts among you come from? Don’t they come from this, namely your passions that battle within your body parts?
2You crave and have not. You murder and you envy, yet you cannot get it. You fight and you wage war. You do not have because you do not ask.
3You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives so you may spend it on your passions.
4You adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5Or do you think that in vain the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit which He made to dwell in us”?
6But He gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7Therefore submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded!
9Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom.
10Humble yourselves in the sight of Adonai, and He shall lift you up.
11Do not speak evil against one another, brethren. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the Torah and judges the Torah. But if you judge the Torah, you are not a doer of the Torah, but a judge.
12There is only one lawgiver and judge—the One who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you who judges your neighbor?
If the Lord Wills, We Will
13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”
14Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”
16But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
17Therefore whoever knows the right thing to do and does not do it—for him it is sin.
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