| 1 Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Is it not precisely in the desiresfighting inside your own selves? |
| 2 You want something and you lack it; so you kil . You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so youfight to get your way by force. It is because you do not pray that you do not receive; |
| 3 when you do pray and do not receive, it is because you prayed wrongly, wanting to indulge yourpassions. |
| 4 Adulterers! Do you not realise that love for the world is hatred for God? Anyone who chooses the worldfor a friend is constituted an enemy of God. |
| 5 Can you not see the point of the saying in scripture, 'The longing of the spirit he sent to dwel in us is ajealous longing.'? |
| 6 But he has given us an even greater grace, as scripture says: God opposes the proud but he accordshis favour to the humble. |
| 7 Give in to God, then; resist the devil, and he wil run away from you. |
| 8 The nearer you go to God, the nearer God wil come to you. Clean your hands, you sinners, and clearyour minds, you waverers. |
| 9 Appreciate your wretchedness, and weep for it in misery. Your laughter must be turned to grief, yourhappiness to gloom. |
| 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord and he wil lift you up. |
| 11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who slanders a brother, or condemns one, is speakingagainst the Law and condemning the Law. But if you condemn the Law, you have ceased to be subject to it andbecome a judge over it. |
| 12 There is only one lawgiver and he is the only judge and has the power to save or to destroy. Who areyou to give a verdict on your neighbour? |
| 13 Wel now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow, we are off to this or that town; we are going to spend ayear there, trading, and make some money.' |
| 14 You never know what wil happen tomorrow: you are no more than a mist that appears for a little whileand then disappears. |
| 15 Instead of this, you should say, 'If it is the Lord's wil , we shal stil be alive to do this or that.' |
| 16 But as it is, how boastful and loud -- mouthed you are! Boasting of this kind is always wrong. |
| 17 Everyone who knows what is the right thing to do and does not do it commits a sin. |