MSB JAM Chapter 4

A Warning against Pride

4 What [causes] conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t [they] [come] from [the] passions at war within you?[fn] 2 You 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. 3 [And when] you do ask, {you do} not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander [it] on your pleasures.

4 [You] adulterers and adulteresses![fn] 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[fn] an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think the Scripture says without reason [that] the Spirit[fn] who dwells[fn] in us yearns with envy? 6 But He gives [us] more grace. This is why it says:

“God opposes [the] proud,

but gives grace to [the] humble.”[fn]

Drawing Near to God

7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse [your] hands, [you] sinners, and purify [your] hearts, [you] double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and [your] joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

11 Brothers, [do] not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against [his] brother and[fn] 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]. 12 There is only one Lawgiver,[fn] the [One who] is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge the other?[fn]

Do Not Boast about Tomorrow

(Proverbs 27:1)

13 Come now, you who say, “Today and[fn] tomorrow let us go[fn] to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” 14 You 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.

15 Instead, you [ought] to say, “If the Lord is willing, let us live[fn] and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows [the] right thing to do, yet fails to do [it], is guilty of sin.