A Warning against Pride

1FROM whence come wars and conflicts among you? spring they not from hence, even from your passions, which war in your members? 2Ye 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. 3Ye ask, and receive nothing, because ye ask vilely, in order to consume it on your sensual appetites. 4Ye 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. 5Think ye that the scripture saith without meaning, The spirit which dwelleth in you strongly urges to envy? 6But he giveth mightier grace. Wherefore he saith, ?God sets himself against the proud, but giveth grace to the lowly.?

Drawing Near to God

7Be in subjection then to God. Resist the devil, and he will fly from you. 8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Make clean your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. 9Be bitterly afflicted and lament, and let your tears run down; let your laughter be converted into mourning, and your joy into dejection. 10Be humbled in the presence of God, so he will exalt you.

11Traduce 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. 12There is one lawgiver, who can save or destroy: who art thou that judgest another man?

Do Not Boast about Tomorrow

13Come 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: 14though 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. 15Instead of your saying, If the Lord pleases, and we are alive, then we will do this or that thing. 16But now ye glory in your proud boastings: all such glorying is wicked. 17Therefore if a man knoweth how to act properly, and doth not, he is criminal.