James 4:8-17 ▼

8 address 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.

9 be afflicted, be mournful, and weep: let your mirth be converted to sadness, and your joy to vexation.

10 humble your selves before the Lord, and he will raise you up.

11 Don'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.

12 there is but one legislator, and judge, he that has the power of life and death: who art thou, to pass sentence upon another?

13 As 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."

14 how do you know, what will happen to-morrow? for, "what is your life?" a vapour that just appears, and then vanishes.

15 your language ought to be this, "if the Lord pleases to give us life, we shall do this, or that."

16 you triumph in your vain projects, but your presumption is vicious.

17 he then that knows what is virtuous, and does not practise it, is a criminal.