1 ¶ Where does the conflict and fighting among you come from? Doesn’t it come from your own lusts that war within you?

2 You want something, and do not get it: you strive, and kill, and cannot obtain it: so you quarrel and fight, yet you do not have, because you do not ask.

3 You ask, and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it on your lusts.

4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you realize that friendship with the world is hostility to God? Therefore anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

5 Do you think that scripture is just empty words? The Spirit that dwells in us is passionately jealous.

6 But the grace he gives is greater. As scripture says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

7 Therefore submit 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, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

9 Grieve, mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will raise you up.

11 ¶ Do not speak evil of each other, brethren. He who speaks evil of his 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 There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and to destroy: who are you to judge your neighbor?

13 Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to a city, and remain there a year, and buy and sell, and make a profit:

14 You who do not know what tomorrow holds. What is your life? It is like a vapor, that appears for a little while, and then vanishes.

15 Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall both live, and do this, or that.

16 But now you boast in your arrogance: all such boasting is evil.

17 Whoever knows what is right, and does not do it, sins.