JAMES 4 [†]What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions [1] are  y at war within you? [2] 2[†]You 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. 3[†]You ask and do not receive, because you ask  z wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4[†] a You adulterous people! [3] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  b Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5[†]Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit  c that he has made to dwell in us”? 6[†]But  d he gives more grace. Therefore it says,  e “God opposes the proud, but  d gives grace to the humble.” 7[†]Submit yourselves therefore to God.  f Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 g Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.  h Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and  i purify your hearts,  j you double-minded. 9 k Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10[†] l Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11[†] m Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. [4] The one who speaks against a brother or  n judges 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. 12[†]There is only  o one lawgiver and  p judge, he who is able to save and  q to destroy. But  r who are you to judge your neighbor?

13[†]Come now, you who say,  s “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14[†]yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For  t you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15[†]Instead you ought to say,  u “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16As it is, you boast in your arrogance.  v All such boasting is evil. 17[†] w So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.