The General Epistle of James

⭑ Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic ⭑

- Chapter 4 -

Now I will tell you why you are fighting among yourselves and quarreling with each other. It is because each of you wants to do the evil things that you enjoy doing, things that do not please your fellow believers.

There are things that you very much desire to have, but you do not get those things, so you want to kill those who hinder you from getting them. You desire what other people have, but you are unable to get what you desire, so you quarrel and fight with one another. You do not have what you desire because you do not ask God for it.

Even when you do ask him, he does not give you what you ask for because you are asking for the wrong reason. You are asking for things in order that you may use them just to enjoy yourselves in bad ways.

Like a woman who is unfaithful to her husband, you are being unfaithful to God and not obeying him anymore. Those who behave as evil people do belong to this world and are enemies against God. Perhaps you do not realize that.

Surely you do not think that it is for no reason that God told us in the scriptures that the Spirit he placed in us yearns for us to live our lives in ways that please him.

But God is powerful and very kind to us, and he wants very much to help us stop sinning. That is why the scripture says, “God opposes those who are proud, but he helps those who are humble.”

Drawing Near to God

So submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and as a result he will run away from you.

Come near spiritually to God. If you do, he will come near to you. You who are sinners, turn away from doing what is wrong and do only what is good. You who cannot decide whether you will commit yourselves to God, stop thinking wrong thoughts, and think only his thoughts.

Be sorrowful and weep because of the wrong that you have done. Do not laugh, enjoying only what you selfishly desire. Instead, be sad because you have done what is wrong.

Humble yourselves before the Lord; if you do, he will honor you.

My brothers and sisters, stop speaking evil against one another, because those who speak evil against a fellow believer and thus condemn one who is like a brother or sister to them are really speaking against the law that God gave us to obey. If you speak against his law, you are acting like a judge who condemns it.

But in fact, there is only one who has the authority to forgive our evil and to condemn people, and that is God. He alone is able to save people or to destroy people. You certainly have no right to take God’s place and judge others.

Do Not Boast about Tomorrow

(Proverbs 27:1)

Some of you are arrogantly saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will spend a year there and we will buy and sell things and earn a lot of money.” Now, you listen to me!

You should not talk like that, because you do not know what will happen tomorrow, and you do not know how long you will live! Your life is short, like a mist that appears for a short time and then disappears.

Instead of what you are saying, you should say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this, or we will do that.”

But what you are doing is boasting about all the things that you plan to do. Your boasting like that is evil.

So if anyone knows the right thing that he should do, but he does not do it, he is sinning.

Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?

You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask.

You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”(a)

Drawing Near to God

Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?

Do Not Boast about Tomorrow

(Proverbs 27:1)

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”

Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”

But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.

To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.

Footnotes

(a)4:6 ℘ Proverbs 3:34