| Chapter text (World English Bible version) |  |
| Attitudes to adopt in life. | |
| 1 Where do wars and fightings amongst you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 2 You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. 3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. | What causes fights and quarrels among people? |
4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility towards 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, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”* 7 Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. * Quotation from Proverbs 3 v 34 | What does James say about friendship with the world? |
| 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. | What should believers do to come near to God? |
| 11 Don’t 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? | What warning does James give about speaking against others? |
| 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 Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” | What should people say instead of boasting about tomorrow? |
| 16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. 17 To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin. | What should people say instead of boasting about tomorrow? |
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