Friendship with the World

1Where do wars and ²²fights among you come from? Do they not come from your passions that wage war among your members?

2You desire but do not have. You murder and are jealous but cannot obtain what you want. You fight and war. ²³You do not have because you do not ask.

3You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

4²⁴Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? ²⁵Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

5Or do you think that the Scripture speaks in vain? The spirit that ²⁶dwells in us desires to the point of envy,

6but God gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

7Submit yourselves therefore to ²⁷God, but 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.

9Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter into mourning and your joy into gloom.

10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Speaking Evil Against One Another

11Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. ²⁸He who speaks evil against a brother ²⁹and judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. Now if yoʋ judge the law, yoʋ are not a doer of the law but a judge.

12There is only one ³⁰lawgiver and judge—he who is able to save and destroy. ³¹But who are yoʋ to judge ³²another?

Boasting About Tomorrow

13Come now, you who say, “Today ³³and tomorrow ³⁴let us go to such and such a city, spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”

14You do not know ³⁵what will happen tomorrow. What is ³⁶your life? ³⁷It is a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

15Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, ³⁸let us live and do this or that.”

16But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

17So whoever knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.