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James 4 :: New King James Version (NKJV)

Pride Promotes Strife
Dangers of Pride, Judging, and Presumption
Jas 4:1Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
Jas 4:2You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet[fn] you do not have because you do not ask.
Jas 4:3You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
Jas 4:4Adulterers and[fn] adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Jas 4:5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
Jas 4:6But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
[fn]
Humility Cures Worldliness
Jas 4:7Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Jas 4:8Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Jas 4:9Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Jas 4:10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Do Not Judge a Brother
Jas 4:11Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
Jas 4:12There is one Lawgiver,[fn] who is able to save and to destroy. Who[fn] are you to judge another?[fn]
Do Not Boast About Tomorrow
Jas 4:13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will[fn] go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”;
Jas 4:14whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Jas 4:15Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
Jas 4:16But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Jas 4:17Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
NKJV Footnotes
NU-Text and M-Text omit Yet.
NU-Text omits Adulterers and.
NU-Text adds and Judge.
NU-Text and M-Text read But who.
NU-Text reads a neighbor.
M-Text reads let us.
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New King James Version, © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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James Chapter 4 — Additional Translations: