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1 Why do you engage in wars and battles against one another?+ It is because of the evil and selfish desires that are waging battle throughout your bodies,+ is it not?
2 You strongly desire something but don’t get it, so you commit murder; you covet something but can’t obtain it, so you battle and go to war. You don’t get the good+ thing you desire because you fail to present to God your request.
3 And even when you do present it you still don’t receive what you ask for, because you are asking for the wrong reasons,+ so that you may squander it simply on your own evil and selfish desires.
4 You adulterers! Surely you know, don’t you, that to be a friend of the world is to be of God an enemy? If someone consents to be a friend, therefore, of the world, he makes himself an enemy, indeed, of God.+
5 Or do you think the Scripture doesn’t really mean it when it says+ that the spirit he placed inside of us burns with a fierce envy?+
6 Even so, he graciously gives us the gift of mercy and help that is even stronger.+ That is why it says,
“As for God, the arrogant he opposes;
to the humble, however, he graciously gives help and mercy.+”+
7 Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Stand your ground against the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Wash the evil from your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts and minds,+ you people of divided loyalty+!
9 Grieve and mourn and weep! Your laughter must change into mourning and your joy into gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 Don’t slander one another, brothers and sisters. If anyone mounts slanderous attacks against a brother or sister or condemns his brother or sister, he is attacking and condemning Torah. And if it is Torah that ˢyou are condemning, you aren’t doing what it says, but are putting yourself in the position of judge.+
12 Yet there is only one lawgiver and judge—the one who has power to save or destroy! But as for ˢyou, who are you to condemn your neighbor?
“All Talk of This Kind Is Wicked”
13 Now listen carefully, ᵖyou who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to travel to such and such town, and we’ll spend a year there and do some business and bring in a profit”—
14 you who don’t even know what tomorrow will bring!+ What is your life like? You are a mere vapor, which appears for but a moment and then is gone.
15 What you ought to say is, “If the Lord allows, we will still have breath+ and do this or that.”
16 As it is, however, you speak presumptuously+ in your arrogance. All talk of this kind+ is wicked.
17 Anyone, therefore, who doesn’t do the good that he knows he should do: He is guilty of sin.