James 4-5

James 4

¹What is the cause of wars and fighting among you? is it not in your desires which are at war in your bodies?

²You are burning with desire, and have not your desire, so you put men to death; you are full of envy, and you are not able to get your desire, so you are fighting and making war; you have not your desire, because you do not make request for it.

³You make your request but you do not get it, because your request has been wrongly made, desiring the thing only so that you may make use of it for your pleasure.

⁴O you who are false to God, do you not see that the friends of this world are not God's friends? Every man desiring to be a friend of this world makes himself a hater of God.

⁵Or does it seem to you that it is for nothing that the holy Writings say, The spirit which God put into our hearts has a strong desire for us?

⁶But he gives more grace. So that the Writings say, God is against the men of pride, but he gives grace to those who make themselves low before him.

⁷For this cause be ruled by God; but make war on the Evil One and he will be put to flight before you.

⁸Come near to God and he will come near to you. Make your hands clean, you evil-doers; put away deceit from your hearts, you false in mind.

⁹Be troubled, with sorrow and weeping; let your laughing be turned to sorrow and your joy to grief.

¹⁰Make yourselves low in the eyes of the Lord and you will be lifted up by him.

¹¹Do not say evil against one another, my brothers. He who says evil against his brother or makes himself his brother's judge, says evil against the law and is judging the law: and in judging the law you become, not a doer of the law but a judge.

¹²There is only one judge and law-giver, even he who has the power of salvation and of destruction; but who are you to be your neighbour's judge?

¹³How foolish it is to say, Today or tomorrow we will go into this town, and be there for a year and do business there and get wealth:

¹⁴When you are not certain what will take place tomorrow. What is your life? It is a mist, which is seen for a little time and then is gone.

¹⁵But the right thing to say would be, If it is the Lord's pleasure and if we are still living, we will do this and that.

¹⁶But now you go on glorying in your pride: and all such glorying is evil.

¹⁷The man who has knowledge of how to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

James 5

¹Come now, you men of wealth, give yourselves to weeping and crying because of the bitter troubles which are coming to you.

²Your wealth is unclean and insects have made holes in your clothing.

³Your gold and your silver are wasted and their waste will be a witness against you, burning into your flesh. You have put by your store in the last days.

⁴See, the money which you falsely kept back from the workers cutting the grass in your field, is crying out against you; and the cries of those who took in your grain have come to the ears of the Lord of armies.

⁵You have been living delicately on earth and have taken your pleasure; you have made your hearts fat for a day of destruction.

⁶You have given your decision against the upright man and have put him to death. He puts up no fight against you.

⁷Go on waiting calmly, my brothers, till the coming of the Lord, like the farmer waiting for the good fruit of the earth till the early and late rains have come.

⁸Be as calm in your waiting; let your hearts be strong: because the coming of the Lord is near.

⁹Say no hard things against one another, brothers, so that you will not be judged; see, the judge is waiting at the doors.

¹⁰Take as an example of pain nobly undergone and of strength in trouble, the prophets who gave to men the words of the Lord.

¹¹We say that those men who have gone through pain are happy: you have the story of Job and the troubles through which he went and have seen that the Lord was full of pity and mercy in the end.

¹²But most of all, my brothers, do not take oaths, not by the heaven, or by the earth, or by any other thing: but let your Yes be Yes, and your No be No: so that you may not be judged.

¹³Is anyone among you in trouble? let him say prayers. Is anyone glad? let him make a song of praise.

¹⁴Is anyone among you ill? let him send for the rulers of the church; and let them say prayers over him, putting oil on him in the name of the Lord.

¹⁵And by the prayer of faith the man who is ill will be made well, and he will be lifted up by the Lord, and for any sin which he has done he will have forgiveness.

¹⁶So then, make a statement of your sins to one another, and say prayers for one another so that you may be made well. The prayer of a good man is full of power in its working.

¹⁷Elijah was a man of flesh and blood as we are, and he made a strong prayer that there might be no rain; and there was no rain on the earth for three years and six months.

¹⁸And he made another prayer, and the heaven sent down rain and the earth gave her fruit.

¹⁹My brothers, if one of you has gone out of the way of the true faith and another has made him see his error,

²⁰Be certain that he through whom a sinner has been turned from the error of his way, keeps a soul from death and is the cause of forgiveness for sins without number.