A Warning against Pride

¹ What causes conflicts^* and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?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 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. ⁵ Or do you think the Scripture^* says without reason that the Spirit^* He caused to dwell 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.”

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 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. ¹² There 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

¹³ Come 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.” 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, we will live 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.