1 Where do wars and fightings come from among you? Do they not come from your lusts that war in your members?

2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

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

4 Adulterers and adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore purposes to be a friend of the world is shown to be opposing God.

5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, The Spirit who dwells in us yearns to envy?

6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: God opposes 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 Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to shame.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a 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 one Lawgiver, who has the power to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

13 Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to this city, spend a year there, do business, and make a profit;

14 whereas you do not know what will be tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.

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

16 But now you boast in your presumptions. All such boasting is evil.

17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.