| 1 Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? |
| 2 You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not possess because you do not ask. |
| 3 You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. |
| 4 Adulterers! Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God. |
| 5 Or do you suppose that the scripture speaks without meaning when it says, "The spirit that he has made to dwell in us tends toward jealousy"? |
| 6 But he bestows a greater grace; therefore, it says: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." |
| 7 So submit yourselves 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, and purify your hearts, you of two minds. |
| 9 Begin to lament, to mourn, to weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. |
| 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. |
| 11 Do not speak evil of one another, brothers. Whoever speaks evil of a brother or judges his brother speaks evil of the law and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. |
| 12 There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save or to destroy. Who then are you to judge your neighbor? |
| 13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit"-- |
| 14 you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. |
| 15 Instead you should say, "If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that." |
| 16 But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. |
| 17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin. |