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James 4

4
Warning Against Worldliness
1What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions#4:1 Greek pleasures; also verse 3 are #Rom. 7:23; 1 Pet. 2:11at war within you?#4:1 Greek in your members 2You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask #[1 John 5:14]wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4#Isa. 54:5; Jer. 2:2 You adulterous people!#4:4 Or You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? #John 15:19; 1 John 2:15; [Matt. 6:24]Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit #1 Cor. 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16that he has made to dwell in us”? 6But #Isa. 54:7, 8; See Matt. 13:12 he gives more grace. Therefore it says, #1 Pet. 5:5; Cited from Prov. 3:34 (Gk.)“God opposes the proud but #Isa. 54:7, 8; See Matt. 13:12 gives grace to the humble.” 7Submit yourselves therefore to God. #1 Pet. 5:8, 9; [Eph. 4:27; 6:11]Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8#2 Chr. 15:2; Lam. 3:57; Zech. 1:3; Mal. 3:7; [Luke 15:20] Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. #Isa. 1:16 Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and #Jer. 4:14 purify your hearts, #ch. 1:8you double-minded. 9#[Matt. 5:4]Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10#ver. 6; Isa. 57:15; [Luke 1:52]; See Matt. 23:12Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 # 2 Cor. 12:20; 1 Pet. 2:1; [ch. 5:9] Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.#4:11 Or brothers and sisters The one who speaks against a brother or #See Matt. 7:1judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12There is only #Isa. 33:22 one lawgiver and #ch. 5:9 judge, he who is able to save and #Matt. 10:28 to destroy. But #Rom. 14:4who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13Come now, you who say, #Prov. 27:1; Luke 12:18-20“Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For #Ps. 102:3; [Job 7:7]you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15Instead you ought to say, #See Acts 18:21“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16As it is, you boast in your arrogance. #[1 Cor. 5:6]All such boasting is evil. 17#[Luke 12:47, 48; 2 Pet. 2:21]; See John 9:41So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

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