James · Chapter 4
James 4
Berean Standard Bible · Public domain · Source credits
A Warning against Pride
1What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?*
2You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.
3And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.
4You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.*
5Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy?*
6But He gives us more grace. This is why it says:“God opposes the proud,but gives grace to the humble.”*
Drawing Near to God
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. 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.
9Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. And if you judge the law, you are not a practitioner of the law, but a judge of it.
12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Do Not Boast about Tomorrow
(Proverbs 27:1)
13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”
14You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”
16As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.
17Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.
Source notes
- 4:1 Literally passions warring among your members?
- 4:4 See Hosea 3:1. Or is appointed Read Hosea 3:1
- 4:5 Or the spirit
- 4:6 Proverbs 3:34 (see also LXX) Read Proverbs 3:34
Old Testament references
References from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Text from the Berean Standard Bible.
Hosea 3:1Then the LORD said to me, “Go show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and offer raisin cakes to idols.”
Proverbs 3:34He mocks the mockers, but gives grace to the humble.
Genesis 4:5but He had no regard for Cain and his offering. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell.
Genesis 4:6“Why are you angry,” said the LORD to Cain, “and why has your countenance fallen?
Genesis 4:7If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it.”
Genesis 4:8Then Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.
Jeremiah 17:9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
Proverbs 1:19Such is the fate of all who are greedy, whose unjust gain takes the lives of its possessors.
Ecclesiastes 4:8There is a man all alone, without even a son or brother. And though there is no end to his labor, his eyes are still not content with his wealth: “For whom do I toil and bereave my soul of enjoyment?” This too is futile—a miserable task.
Habakkuk 2:5and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations to himself and collects all the peoples as his own.
Isaiah 7:12But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask; I will not test the LORD.”
Job 27:8For what is the hope of the godless when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?
Job 27:9Will God hear his cry when distress comes upon him?
Job 27:10Will he delight in the Almighty? Will he call upon God at all times?