New Living Translation

English Standard Version

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?

1

Warning Against Worldliness

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passionsa are at war within you?b

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.

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

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

3

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

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.

4

You adulterous people!c Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

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

5

Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

6

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

6

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

7

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

7

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

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.

8

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

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.

9

Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

10

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

10

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

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.

11

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.d The one who speaks against a brother or 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

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?

12

There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

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.”

13

Boasting About Tomorrow

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” —

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.

14

yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

15

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

15

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

16

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

16

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

17

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

17

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Parallel

New Living Translation

English Standard Version

James 4

James 4