4:1 What is the cause of quarrels and fightings among you? Is it not mainly from your own lusts that are warring within your members? |
4:2 You lust, and have not; you kill, and are jealous, and are not able to obtain; you fight and quarrel, but still you do not have, because you do not ask. |
4:3 Then you ask, and you do not receive, because you ask with evil motives, that you may consume it on your own lusts. |
4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever desires to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. |
4:5 Or do you think that the scripture says in vain, "The spirit that dwells in us lusts with envy"? |
4:6 But He gives greater grace. This is the reason it says, "God sets Himself against the proud, but He gives grace to the humble." |
4:7 Therefore, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. |
4:8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double- minded! |
4:9 Be grieved and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into grieving, and your joy into mourning. |
4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. |
4:11 Brethren, do not talk against one another. The one who talks against a brother, and judges his brother, is speaking against the law, and is judging the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law; rather, you are a judge. |
4:12 But there is only one Lawgiver, Who has power to save and to destroy. Who are you that you presume to judge another? |
4:13 Now listen, those of you who say, "Today and tomorrow we will go into such a city, and we will spend a year, and we will conduct business and make a profit." |
4:14 You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little while, and then disappears. |
4:15 Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live, and we will do this or that." |
4:16 But now you boast in your own arrogance. All such boasting is evil. |
4:17 Therefore, if anyone knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. |