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James 4

1Where do wars come from, and where do battles among you come from? Is it not from your pleasures that wage war in your body's parts? 2You desire and do not have. You murder and are jealous and cannot obtain. You battle and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you think the scripture speaks in vain: “The spirit he caused to dwell in us yearns enviously”? 6But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

7So submit to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded people. 9Be distressed and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

11Do not speak against one another, brothers. Whoever speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12There is one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.” 14You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17So for anyone who knows the good to do and does not do it, it is sin.

Translation notes 6

4:1–2 — Wars and murder. The military language depicts conflict within the community. “You murder” is the wording of the Greek; the translation does not replace it with “you hate” or decide whether the charge is literal violence or a severe portrayal of destructive hostility.

4:4 — Adulteresses. The Greek uses a feminine plural, applying marital infidelity imagery to the community's disloyalty to God. It does not single out women for the accusation. Some witnesses add “adulterers and,” but the shorter base is retained.

4:5 — The spirit yearns. This very difficult sentence is provisionally read as the human spirit's envious longing. A significant alternative is “He yearns jealously for the spirit he caused to dwell in us,” referring to God's claim on people. Other readings identify the Holy Spirit as the one who yearns or is yearned for. The precise scriptural quotation has not been identified. The base says “caused to dwell”; a textual alternative says “dwelt.”

4:6–10 — Grace and humility. The quotation is from Proverbs 3:34 as James gives it. “Double-minded” repeats 1:8. The distress and mourning concern the disloyalty just rebuked; the translation does not reduce these commands to mere regret.

4:11–12 — Brothers and judgment. The family address can include the whole community. James moves from slandering a brother to judging the law itself and then to the sole lawgiver and judge.

4:14–15 — Life and tomorrow. Alternatively, “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.” The Greek can be punctuated either way. The Lord's will governs both living and doing; the reading does not limit it to the business venture alone.