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The Letter of James 4

4 I will tell you why you are fighting among yourselves and quarreling with each other. It is because each of you inwardly desires to do evil things. Those desires lead you to fight in order to be able to do those things. 2 You desire to have things, but you do not get them. This makes you bitterly resent the people who do have them. But you still do not get what you want, so you quarrel and fight with others. If you pray to God instead for the things you desire, then God will give you what you truly need. 3 But even when you do ask God for things, he does not give them to you, because you are asking with bad motives. You are asking for things just so that you can use them to enjoy yourselves in wrong ways.

4 You are being disloyal to God by not obeying him! You must realize that those who behave as evil people do are hostile to God. So if that is how you decide to live, then you will be choosing to be hostile to God. 5 You must realize that God has purposely told us about this in the Scriptures. There he teaches us that the Spirit he placed in us yearns for us to live our lives in ways that please him. 6 If we are living in ways that do not please God, he is very kind to us. He will help us live differently if we humbly admit that we have been doing wrong. That is why this teaching is in the Bible: “God does not help those who are proud, but he does help those who are humble.”

7 So choose humbly to obey God. Firmly determine not to give in to the devil’s temptations. This will make the devil give up on trying to tempt you. 8 Be honest and open with God. If you do, he will welcome you into his presence. You who are sinners, turn away from doing what is wrong and do only what is right. You who cannot decide whether you will commit yourselves to God, stop thinking wrong thoughts and think only right thoughts. 9 Show sorrow and be sad and weep because of the wrong things that you have done. You have been enjoying yourselves, but you should be serious and realize how much you need to change. 10 Humbly show the Lord how sorry you are for your sins. if you do that, he will honor you.

11 My fellow believers, stop accusing one another of doing wrong. Anyone who accuses and condemns a fellow believer is really accusing and condemning God’s commandment that we should love one another. But if you speak against that commandment, you are not obeying it. Instead, you are acting like a judge who condemns it. 12 The only one who can judge people according to the law is the one who gave the law. That is God, who is able not just to condemn people for breaking the law but also to pardon them even though they have broken the law. You certainly are not entitled to take God’s place and judge others.

13 Some of you are arrogantly saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain city. We will spend a year there and we will buy and sell things and earn a lot of money.” Now you listen to me! 14 You should not talk like that, because you do not know what will happen tomorrow. In fact, you do not even know how long you will live! After all, your life is short, like a mist that is visible briefly but then vanishes. 15 Instead of what you are saying, you should say, “If the Lord is willing, we will still be alive and we will be able to do one thing or another.” 16 But what you are doing is bragging about all the things you plan to do. That kind of bragging is sinful.

17 So if anyone does not do something even though he knows it is the right thing that he should do, he has committed a sin.

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