Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
James 4
Desires at War
Where do the conflicts and fights among you come from? Do they not come from your desires that are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you can spend it on your desires. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever chooses to be a friend of the world makes themselves an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture speaks for no reason when it says, “He yearns jealously for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us”? But he gives greater grace. Therefore Scripture says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Do Not Judge One Another
Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. The one who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. There is one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a city, spend a year there, conduct business, and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears. Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for that person it is sin.