New International Version

New Living Translation

Submit Yourselves to God

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?

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

You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

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

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on 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

You adulterous people,a don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an 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

Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in usb?

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 us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”c

6

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

7

Submit yourselves, then, 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

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you 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

Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

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 will lift you up.

10

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

11

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sisterd or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.

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

There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you — who are you to judge your neighbor?

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

Boasting About Tomorrow

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”

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

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

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, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and 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

As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

16

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

17

If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

17

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

Parallel

New International Version

New Living Translation

James 4

James 4