Passions and Pride

1Where do the conflicts and where do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, from your passions that battle inside you? 2You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; 3you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions.

4Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy. 5Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, “The spirit that God caused to live within us has an envious yearning”? 6But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.” 7So submit to God. But resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter into mourning and your joy into despair. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.

11Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. He who speaks against a fellow believer or judges a fellow believer speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. 12But there is only one who is lawgiver and judge – the one who is able to save and destroy. On the other hand, who are you to judge your neighbor?

13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” 14You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life like? For you are a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes. 15You ought to say instead, “If the Lord is willing, then we will live and do this or that.” 16But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17So whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin.