Warning against Pride
1 Where do wars and quarrels among you come from? Do they not come from your passions warring within you? 2 You lust and do not have, so you murder and covet and cannot obtain it. You fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 You adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain that the Spirit who lives within us yearns jealously? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says,
“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” a
Drawing Near to God
7 Be subject therefore 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. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Do not speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges 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. 12 Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?
Do Not Boast about Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” 14 You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 For you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will both live and do this or that.” 16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. 17 To him therefore who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.