A Warning against Pride

1you breathe slaughter and revenge for what you cannot obtain. 2you quarrel and go to war, but without success, because you don't petition for it: and if you did, 3you would not obtain it, because you wickedly request to have your passions gratified. 4Degenerate race, don't you know that friendship with vice is hostility against heaven, he that is a friend to the vicious world, is an enemy to God. 5or do you imagine that passage of scripture to be insignificant, "does the spirit that dwells in you, incite you to vice?" 6on the contrary, he heaps his favours upon you, wherefore 'tis said, "God defeats the proud, but is gracious to the humble."

Drawing Near to God

7Surrender therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8address your selves to God, and you will find him present with you: cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, you that are diffident. 9be afflicted, be mournful, and weep: let your mirth be converted to sadness, and your joy to vexation. 10humble your selves before the Lord, and he will raise you up.

11Don't, my brethren, treat one another with detraction, he that reflects upon his brother, and censures his brother, reflects upon the law, and censures the law: if you censure the law, instead of obeying it, you set up for a judge. 12there is but one legislator, and judge, he that has the power of life and death: who art thou, to pass sentence upon another?

Do Not Boast about Tomorrow

13As for you, who affirm, "to-day, or, to-morrow we will go to such a city, we will stay there a whole year, there we will traffic, and find our account." 14how do you know, what will happen to-morrow? for, "what is your life?" a vapour that just appears, and then vanishes. 15your language ought to be this, "if the Lord pleases to give us life, we shall do this, or that." 16you triumph in your vain projects, but your presumption is vicious. 17he then that knows what is virtuous, and does not practise it, is a criminal.