Draw Near to God

¹What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?[#4:1 Lit From where wars and from where fightings; #4:1 Lit Are they not from here , from your]

²You lust and do not have, so you murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.

³You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.[#4:3 Lit wickedly; #4:3 Lit in]

⁴You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world sets himself as an enemy of God.

⁵Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?[#4:5 Or The spirit which He has made to dwell in us lusts with envy; #4:5 Lit desires to jealousy]

⁶But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud , but gives grace to the humble .”

⁷Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

⁸Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

⁹Be miserable and mourn and cry. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

¹⁰Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

¹¹Do not slander one another, brothers. He who slanders a brother or judges his brother, slanders the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it .

¹²There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you who judge your neighbor?

Life Is a Vapor

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”

¹⁴Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.[#4:14 Lit Who do not; #4:14 Or what will happen tomorrow. What kind of life is yours?]

¹⁵Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”[#4:15 Lit Instead of your saying]

¹⁶But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.[#4:16 Or pretensions]

¹⁷Therefore, to one who knows to do the right thing and does not do it, to him it is sin.[#4:17 Or good]