James 4 DBY
Summary: James traces quarrels and fights among believers to the passions warring within them, and to selfish, wrongly motivated prayer, declaring that friendship with the world is enmity with God. He calls readers to submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, and humble themselves before the Lord, who "gives grace to the humble" (v. 6). He warns against speaking evil of and judging one another, since there is only one lawgiver and judge, and rebukes presumptuous planning that boasts of tomorrow without acknowledging, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (v. 15), closing with the principle that whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it sins.
1Whence [come] wars and whence fightings among you? [Is it] not thence, — from your pleasures, which war in your members?
2Ye lust and have not: ye kill and are full of envy, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; ye have not because ye ask not.
3Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask evilly, that ye may consume [it] in your pleasures.
4Adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity withGod? Whoever therefore is minded to be [the] friend of the world is constituted enemy ofGod.
5Think ye that the scripture speaks in vain? Does the Spirit which has taken his abode in us desire enviously?
6But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says,God sets himself against [the] proud, but gives grace to [the] lowly.
7Subject yourselves therefore toGod. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8Draw near toGod, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse [your] hands, sinners, and purify [your] hearts, ye double-minded.
9Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness.
10Humble yourselves before [the] Lord, and he shall exalt you.
11Speak not against one another, brethren. He that speaks against [his] brother, or judges his brother, speaks against [the] law and judges [the] law. But if thou judgest [the] law, thou art not doer of [the] law, but judge.
12One is the lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou who judgest thy neighbour?
13Go to now, ye who say, To-day or to-morrow will we go into such a city and spend a year there, and traffic and make gain,
14ye who do not know what will be on the morrow, ([for] what [is] your life? It is even a vapour, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing,)
15instead of your saying, If the Lord should [so] will and we should live, we will also do this or that.
16But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil.
17To him therefore who knows how to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.
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