FROM whence come wars and conflicts among you? spring they not from
hence, even from your passions, which war in your members? (2)Ye
eagerly covet, yet have not: ye murder, and are envious, yet cannot
obtain _your object_; ye wage war, but have not, because ye pray not.
(3)Ye ask, and receive nothing, because ye ask vilely, in order to
consume it on your sensual appetites.
(4)Ye adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that friendship with the
world is enmity against God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of
the world is set down an enemy to God. (5)Think ye that the scripture
saith without meaning, The spirit which dwelleth in you strongly urges
to envy? (6)But he giveth mightier grace. Wherefore he saith, "God sets
himself against the proud, but giveth grace to the lowly[147]."
(7)Be in subjection then to God. Resist the devil, and he will fly from
you. (8)Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Make clean your
hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. (9)Be
bitterly afflicted and lament, and let your tears run down; let your
laughter be converted into mourning, and your joy into dejection.
(10)Be humbled in the presence of God, so he will exalt you.
(11)Traduce not one another, brethren. He that traduceth his brother,
and judgeth his brother, traduceth the law, and judgeth the law: but if
thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but as judge.
(12)There is one lawgiver, who can save or destroy: who art thou that
judgest another man?
(13)Come now, ye that talk, To-day or to-morrow we will go to such a
town, and do business there during one year, and traffic, and make
great profits: (14)though ye know nothing of what shall be to-morrow.
For what is your life? It is but a vapour which appeareth for a little
while, and then vanishes away. (15)Instead of your saying, If the Lord
pleases, and we are alive, then we will do this or that thing. (16)But
now ye glory in your proud boastings: all such glorying is wicked.
(17)Therefore if a man knoweth how to act properly, and doth not, he is
criminal.