Outline
Greetings (1:1)Trials and Temptations (1:2-18)Listening and Doing (1:19-27)Favoritism Forbidden (2:1-13)Faith and Deeds (2:14-26)Taming the Tongue (3:1-12)Two Kinds of Wisdom (3:13-18)- Warning against Worldliness (ch. 4)
Warning to Rich Oppressors (5:1-6)Miscellaneous Exhortations (5:7-20)
James 4 NLT
1 What is causing the quarrels and
fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within
you?
2 You want what you don’t have, so you
scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t
get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have
what you want because you don’t ask God for it.
3 And even when you ask, you don’t get
it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you
pleasure.
4 You adulterers! Don’t you realize
that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If
you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
5 Do you think the Scriptures have no
meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within
us should be faithful to him.
6 And he gives grace generously. As the
Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
7 So humble yourselves before God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8 Come close to God, and God will come
close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your
loyalty is divided between God and the world.
9 Let there be tears for what you have
done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of
laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord,
and he will lift you up in honor.
11 Don’t speak evil against each other,
dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are
criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to
judge whether it applies to you.
12 God alone, who gave the law, is the
Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have
to judge your neighbor?
13 Look here, you who say, “Today or
tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do
business there and make a profit.”
14 How do you know what your life will
be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while,
then it’s gone.
15 What you ought to say is, “If the
Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”
16 Otherwise you are boasting about your
own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.
17 Remember, it is sin
to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
