James 4-5

Jubilee Bible 2000

4 ¶ Where do the wars and disputes come from among you? Is it not from here, that is to say, of your lusts which fight in your members?

² Ye covet and have not; ye murder, and have envy and cannot obtain; ye fight and war and have not that which ye desire because ye ask not.

³ Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your pleasures.

⁴ Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore that desires to be a friend of the world, makes himself the enemy of God.

⁵ Do ye think that the scripture says in vain, The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy?

⁶ But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.

⁷ Submit yourselves, therefore, 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, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

⁹ Be afflicted and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness.

¹⁰ Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

¹¹ ¶ Murmur not against one another, brethren. He that speaks evil of his brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law; but if thou judge the law, thou art not a keeper of the law, but a judge.

¹² There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou to judge another?

¹³ Come now, ye that say, Today and tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain;

¹⁴ and ye do not know what shall be tomorrow. For what is your life? Certainly it is a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

¹⁵ Ye ought to say instead, If the Lord wills, and if we live, we shall do this or that.

¹⁶ But now ye boast in your arrogance; all such glory is evil.

¹⁷ Therefore sin is still in the one that knows to do good and does not do it.

5 ¶ Come now, Oh ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

² Your riches are rotten, and your garments are motheaten.

³ Your gold and silver is corrupted with rust; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall completely eat your flesh, as fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

⁴ Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped your fields (which you have kept back by fraud) cries out; and the cries of those who have reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of the hosts.

⁵ Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton; ye have refreshed your hearts, as in the day of slaughter of sacrifices.

⁶ Ye have condemned and murdered the just, and he does not resist you.

⁷ Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently until it receives the early and latter rain.

⁸ Be ye also patient and confirm your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draws near.

⁹ Complain not one against another, brethren, that ye not be condemned: behold, the judge stands before the door.

¹⁰ Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.

¹¹ Behold, we count blessed those who endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very merciful, and full of compassion.

¹² ¶ But above all things, my brethren, do not swear by heaven or by the earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no, no; lest ye fall into condemnation.

¹³ Is anyone among you afflicted? let them pray. Is anyone happy? let them sing.

¹⁴ Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the congregation; {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} and let them pray for him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;

¹⁵ and the prayer of faith shall cause the one who is sick to be saved, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he shall be forgiven them.

¹⁶ Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be whole. The effectual prayer of the righteous is very powerful.

¹⁷ Elijah was a man subject to passions like unto ours, and he asked in prayer that it might not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.

¹⁸ And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.

¹⁹ Brethren, if any of you have erred from the truth, and someone should convert him;

²⁰ let that one know, that whosoever causes the sinner to convert from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall cover a multitude of sins.