Pride Promotes Strife
1 Where do wars and fightscomefrom among you? Dotheynotcomefrom yourdesiresforpleasurethat war in your members?
2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive,because you ask amiss, that you may spenditon your pleasures.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know thatfriendship with the world is enmity with God?Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain,“The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
# “God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
Humility Cures Worldliness
7 Therefore submit to God.Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.Cleanseyourhands,yousinners; andpurifyyourhearts,youdouble-minded.
9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning andyourjoy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Do Not Judge a Brother
11 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brotherand judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
12 There is one Lawgiver,who is able to save and to destroy.Who are you to judge another?
Do Not Boast About Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;
14 whereas you do not know whatwillhappentomorrow. For whatisyour life?It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
15 Instead yououghtto say,“If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
16 But now you boast in your arrogance.All such boasting is evil.
17 Therefore,to him who knows to do good and does not doit,to him it is sin.