1 W hat is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?

2 Y ou lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.

3 Y ou ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

4 Y ou adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

5 O r do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “ He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”?

6 B ut He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “ God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

7 S ubmit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

8 D raw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

9 B e miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

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

11 D o not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or 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 of it.

12 T here is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

13 C ome now, you who say, “ Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”

14 Y et you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

15 I nstead, you ought to say, “ If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

16 B ut as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

17 T herefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.