Warning Against Worldliness
1
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passionsa are 1at war within you?b
2
You 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.
4
3You adulterous people!c Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? 4Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5
Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit 5that he has made to dwell in us"?
6
But 6he gives more grace. Therefore it says, 7"God opposes the proud, but 8gives grace to the humble."
8
10Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. 11Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and 12purify your hearts, 13you double-minded.
11
16Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.d The one who speaks against a brother or 17judges 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.
12
There is only 18one lawgiver and 19judge, he who is able to save and 20to destroy. But 21who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13
Come now, you who say, 22"Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
(English Standard Version - The Holy Bible Online)