Proud or Humble
1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions f that wage war within you? O 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. P You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. g
4 You adulterous people! Q Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God. h 5 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely? R,i
6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says:
God resists the proud,
but gives grace to the humble. S,j
7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. k 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. l 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. m 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Don’t criticize one another, brothers and sisters. Anyone who defames or judges a fellow believer T defames and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. n 12 There is one lawgiver and judge U who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? o
Our Will and God’s Will
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” p 14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes. q
15 Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. r 17 So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it. s