BSB · Scripture
James 4
Berean Standard Bible
Section headings and translator notes come from the publisher; they are reading aids, distinct from the Bible text.
A Warning against Pride
Verse1What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?
Verse2You 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.
Verse3And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.
Verse4You 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.
Verse5Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy?
Verse6But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Drawing Near to God
Verse7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Verse8Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Verse9Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
Verse10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Verse11Brothers, 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.
Verse12There 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
Verse13Come 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.”
Verse14You 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.
Verse15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”
Verse16As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.
Verse17Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.
Translator notes (5)
- Verse 1: Literally passions warring among your members?
- Verse 4: See Hosea 3:1.
- Verse 4: Or is appointed
- Verse 5: Or the spirit
- Verse 6: Proverbs 3:34 (see also LXX)