Chapter 4

¹What causes wars and fights among you? Is it not your cravings, which are at war within your bodies? ²You crave things, and cannot have them, and so you commit murder. You covet things, and cannot get them, and so you quarrel and fight. You do not have things because you do not ask for them. ³You ask and fail to get them because you ask with wrong motives, to spend them on your pleasures. ⁴You renegades! Do you not know that the friendship of the world means enmity with God? So whoever wishes to be the world’s friend declares himself God’s enemy. ⁵Do you suppose the Scripture means nothing when it says, “He yearns jealously over the Spirit he has put in our hearts?” ⁶But he gives all the greater blessing. As the Scripture says, “God opposes haughty persons, but he blesses humble-minded ones.” ⁷Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will fly from you. ⁸Approach God, and he will approach you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Make your hearts pure, you doubters! ⁹Be miserable, grieve, and weep aloud! Turn your laughter into grief and your happiness into gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will raise you up

¹¹Do not talk against one another, brothers. Whoever talks against a brother or condemns his brother talks against the Law, and condemns the Law. But if you condemn the Law you are not an observer of the Law but its judge. ¹²There is only one lawgiver and judge—he who has the power to save and to destroy; who are you, to judge your neighbor?

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to such and such a town, to stay a year and go into business and make money,” ¹⁴when you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow! You are just a mist, which appears for a little while and then disappears. ¹⁵This, instead of saying, “If it is the Lord’s will, we shall live to do this or that.” ¹⁶But, as it is, you pride yourselves on your pretensions. All such pride is wrong. ¹⁷So when a man knows what is right and fails to do it, he is guilty of sin.