Warning against Pride

1From where come quarrels and from where conflicts among you? Is it not from there, out of your passions warring in your members? 2You desire and do not have. You kill and covet and are not able to obtain. You fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, that you may spend it in your pleasures.

4Adulteresses!a Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility with God? Therefore whoever has chosen to be a friend of the world is appointed an enemy of God. 5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit that He has made to dwell in us yearns with envy”? 6But He gives greater grace. Therefore it says:

“God opposes the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.”b

Drawing Near to God

7Therefore subject yourselves to God. But 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 have purified hearts, you double-minded. 9Be grieved and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and the joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

11Do not speak against one another, brothers. The one speaking against his brother or judging his brother speaks 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 one Lawgiver and Judge, the One being able to save and to destroy. But who are you judging the neighbor?

Do Not Boast of Tomorrow

13Come now, those saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this city, and will spend a year there, and will trade, and will make a profit,” 14who know not what is on the next day. What is your life? It is just a vapor, appearing for a little while, and then vanishing.

15Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord should will, both we will live and we will do this or that.” 16But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17Therefore to the one knowing to do good, and not doing, it is sin.