Darby Bible Translation

New Living Translation

Warning against Pride

Whence [come] wars and whence fightings among you? [Is it] not thence, -- from your pleasures, which war in your members?

1

Drawing Close to God

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?

2

Ye 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.

2

You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.

3

Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask evilly, that ye may consume [it] in your pleasures.

3

And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong — you want only what will give you pleasure.

4

Adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore is minded to be [the] friend of the world is constituted enemy of God.

4

You adulterers!a Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.

5

Think ye that the scripture speaks in vain? Does the Spirit which has taken his abode in us desire enviously?

5

Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him.b

6

But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says, God sets himself against [the] proud, but gives grace to [the] lowly.

6

And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say,
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”c

7

Drawing Near to God

Subject yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

7

So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse [your] hands, sinners, and purify [your] hearts, ye double-minded.

8

Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.

9

Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness.

9

Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.

10

Humble yourselves before [the] Lord, and he shall exalt you.

10

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.

11

Speak 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.

11

Warning against Judging Others

Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters.d If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you.

12

One is the lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy: but who art *thou* who judgest thy neighbour?

12

God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?

13

Do Not Boast about Tomorrow

Go 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,

13

Warning about Self-Confidence

Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.”

14

ye 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,)

14

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog — it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

15

instead of your saying, If the Lord should [so] will and we should live, we will also do this or that.

15

What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”

16

But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil.

16

Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.

17

To him therefore who knows how to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.

17

Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.

Parallel

Darby Bible Translation

New Living Translation

James 4

James 4