1 W hat leads to strife (discord and feuds) and how do conflicts (quarrels and fightings) originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members?

Whence wars and fightings among you? not thence -- out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members?

2 Y ou are jealous and covet and your desires go unfulfilled; you become murderers. You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain, so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask.

ye desire, and ye have not; ye murder, and are zealous, and are not able to attain; ye fight and war, and ye have not, because of your not asking;

3 y ou do ask and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is to spend it in sensual pleasures.

ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend.

4 Y ou unfaithful wives! Do you not know that being the world’s friend is being God’s enemy? So whoever chooses to be a friend of the world takes his stand as an enemy of God.

Adulterers and adulteresses! have ye not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever, then, may counsel to be a friend of the world, an enemy of God he is set.

5 O r do you suppose that the Scripture is speaking to no purpose that says, The Spirit Whom He has caused to dwell in us yearns over us and He yearns for the Spirit with a jealous love?

Do ye think that emptily the Writing saith, `To envy earnestly desireth the spirit that did dwell in us,'

6 B ut He gives us more and more grace ( power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully). That is why He says, God sets Himself against the proud and haughty, but gives grace to the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it).

and greater grace he doth give, wherefore he saith, `God against proud ones doth set Himself up, and to lowly ones He doth give grace?'

7 S o be subject to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

be subject, then, to God; stand up against the devil, and he will flee from you;

8 C ome close to God and He will come close to you. sinners, get your soiled hands clean; wavering individuals with divided interests, and purify your hearts.

draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you; cleanse hands, ye sinners! and purify hearts, ye two-souled!

9 b e deeply penitent and grieve, even weep. Let your laughter be turned to grief and your mirth to dejection and heartfelt shame.

be exceeding afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter to mourning be turned, and the joy to heaviness;

10 H umble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

be made low before the Lord, and He shall exalt you.

11 b rethren, do not speak evil about or accuse one another. He that maligns a brother or judges his brother is maligning and criticizing the Law and judging the Law. But if you judge the Law, you are not a practicer of the Law but a censor and judge.

Speak not one against another, brethren; he who is speaking against a brother, and is judging his brother, doth speak against law, and doth judge law, and if law thou dost judge, thou art not a doer of law but a judge;

12 O ne only is the Lawgiver and Judge Who is able to save and to destroy. who are you that pass judgment on your neighbor?

one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; thou -- who art thou that dost judge the other?

13 C ome now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and make money.

Go, now, ye who are saying, `To-day and to-morrow we will go on to such a city, and will pass there one year, and traffic, and make gain;'

14 Y et you do not know about what may happen tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? You are but a wisp of vapor (a puff of smoke, a mist) that is visible for a little while and then disappears.

who do not know the thing of the morrow; for what is your life? for it is a vapour that is appearing for a little, and then is vanishing;

15 Y ou ought instead to say, If the Lord is willing, we shall live and we shall do this or that.

instead of your saying, `If the Lord may will, we shall live, and do this or that;'

16 B ut as it is, you boast in your presumption and your self-conceit. All such boasting is wrong.

and now ye glory in your pride; all such glorying is evil;

17 S o any person who knows what is right to do but does not do it, to him it is sin.

to him, then, knowing to do good, and not doing, sin it is to him.