1Whence [come] wars and whence fightings among you? [Is it] not thence, — from your pleasures, which war in your members?

2Ye lust and have not: ye kill and are full of envy, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; ye have not because ye ask not.

3Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask evilly, that ye may consume [it] in your pleasures.

4Adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with ¹¹God? Whoever therefore is minded to be [the] friend of the world is constituted enemy of ¹²God.

5Think ye that the scripture speaks in vain? Does the Spirit which has taken his abode in us desire enviously?

6But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says, ¹³God sets himself against [the] proud, but gives grace to [the] lowly.

7Subject yourselves therefore to ¹⁴God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8Draw near to ¹⁵God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse [your] hands, sinners, and purify [your] hearts, ye double-minded.

9Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness.

10Humble yourselves before [the] Lord, and he shall exalt you.

11Speak not against one another, brethren. He that speaks against [his] brother, or judges his brother, speaks against [the] law and judges [the] law. But if thou judgest [the] law, thou art not doer of [the] law, but judge.

12One is the lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou who judgest thy neighbour?

13Go to now, ye who say, To-day or to-morrow will we go into such a city and spend a year there, and traffic and make gain,

14ye who do not know what will be on the morrow, ([for] what [is] your life? It is even a vapour, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing,)

15instead of your saying, If the Lord should [so] will and we should live, we will also do this or that.

16But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil.

17To him therefore who knows how to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.