Obey God

¹Why do you fight and argue among yourselves? Isn’t it because of your wrong desires that fight within you?

²You want something, but you don’t have it, so you kill. You want what others have, but you can’t get what you want, so you argue and fight. You don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God.

³When you do ask for something, you don’t receive it because you’re asking for the wrong reason. You just want to satisfy your desires.

⁴You unfaithful people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Anyone who chooses to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy.

⁵Scripture says with good reason that God wants the spirit he put in us to belong only to him.

⁶But God gives us more grace, which is why Scripture says,

“God opposes those who are proud,

but he gives grace to those who are humble.”

⁷So do what God wants. Resist the devil, and he’ll run away from you.

⁸Come near to God, and he’ll come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you who can’t make up your minds.

⁹Be full of sorrow, cry and weep, and change your laughter to mourning and your joy to sadness.

¹⁰Approach the Lord humbly, and he will lift you up.

¹¹My brothers and sisters, don’t say bad things about one another. Anyone who says something bad about a brother or sister is saying it about the law, and anyone who judges another believer is judging the law. When you judge the law, you’re not keeping it, you’re acting as if you were its judge.

¹²There’s only one Lawgiver and Judge, God, who is able to save life or destroy it. So who are you to judge your neighbor?

Bragging About Tomorrow

¹³Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we’re going to go to this or that city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make money.”

¹⁴You don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow. What is your life? You’re a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears.

¹⁵Instead, you should say, “If it’s the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

¹⁶As it is, you’re bragging about plans that you’ve made in your pride. That kind of bragging is wrong.

¹⁷If anyone knows there’s something good they should do, but they don’t do it, that’s a sin for them.