Warning Against Worldliness
1
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passionsa are 1at war within you?b
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You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
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You ask and do not receive, because you ask 2wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
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3You adulterous people!c Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? 4Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
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Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit 5that he has made to dwell in us"?
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But 6he gives more grace. Therefore it says, 7"God opposes the proud, but 8gives grace to the humble."
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Submit yourselves therefore to God. 9Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
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10Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. 11Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and 12purify your hearts, 13you double-minded.
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14Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
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15Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
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16Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.d The one who speaks against a brother or 17judges his brother, speaks evil 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
There is only 18one lawgiver and 19judge, he who is able to save and 20to destroy. But 21who are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13
Come now, you who say, 22"Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--
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yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For 23you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
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Instead you ought to say, 24"If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
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As it is, you boast in your arrogance. 25All such boasting is evil.
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26So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
(English Standard Version - The Holy Bible Online)