Warning Against Worldliness

¹What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions1 are yat war within you?2 ²You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask zwrongly, to spend it on your passions. ⁴aYou adulterous people!3 Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? bTherefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit cthat he has made to dwell in us”? ⁶But dhe gives more grace. Therefore it says, e“God opposes the proud but dgives grace to the humble.” ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. fResist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸gDraw near to God, and he will draw near to you. hCleanse your hands, you sinners, and ipurify your hearts, jyou double-minded. ⁹kBe wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰lHumble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

¹¹mDo not speak evil against one another, brothers.4 The one who speaks against a brother or njudges his brother, speaks evil 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 only oone lawgiver and pjudge, he who is able to save and qto destroy. But rwho are you to judge your neighbor?

Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³Come now, you who say, s“Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For tyou are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead you ought to say, u“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶As it is, you boast in your arrogance. vAll such boasting is evil. ¹⁷wSo whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.