Tiago 4

Proud or Humble

1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions  * 4:1 Rm 7:23; Ti 3:9 that wage war within you?  * 4:1 Or war in your members2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war.  * 4:2 Or You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.  * 4:3 Ps 18:41; 1Jn 3:22; 5:14

4 You adulterous people!  * 4:4 Lit Adulteresses Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.  * 4:4 Jn 15:19; Jms 1:27; 1Jn 2:155 Or do you think it’s without reason that the Scripture says: The spirit he made to dwell in us envies intensely?  * 4:5 Or Scripture says: He jealously yearns for the spirit he made to live in us?, or Scripture says: The Spirit he made to dwell in us longs jealously?,* 4:5 1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16

6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says:

God resists the proud

but gives grace to the humble.* 4:6 Pr 3:34,* 4:6 Ps 138:6; Pr 3:34; Mt 23:12

7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  * 4:7 Eph 4:27; 6:11; 1Pt 5:8–98 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  * 4:8 2Ch 15:2; Is 1:16; Jms 1:89 Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.  * 4:9 Mt 5:4; Lk 6:2510 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11 Don’t criticize one another, brothers and sisters. Anyone who defames or judges a fellow believer  * 4:11 Or his brother or sister defames and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.  * 4:11 Mt 7:1; Jms 1:22; 1Pt 2:112 There is one lawgiver and judge  * 4:12 Other mss omit and judge who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?  * 4:12 Mt 10:28; Rm 14:4

Our Will and God’s Will

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit."  * 4:13 Pr 27:1; Lk 12:18–2014 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring — what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.  * 4:14 Jb 7:7; Ps 102:3

15 Instead, you should say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.  * 4:15–16 Ac 18:21; 1Co 5:617 So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it.  * 4:17 Lk 12:47–48; Jn 9:41; 2Pt 2:21