James 4 – Studienbibel

1 From where come wars and from where fightings among you? Is it not from there,—from your pleasures, which war in your members?

2 You lust and have not: you kill and are full of envy, and cannot obtain; you fight and war; you have not because you ask not.

3 You ask and receive not, because you ask evilly, that you may consume it in your pleasures.

4 Adulteresses, know you not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore is minded to be the friend of the world is constituted enemy of God.

5 Think you that the scripture speaks in vain? Does the Spirit which has taken his abode in us desire enviously?

6 But he gives more grace. For which reason he says, God sets himself against the proud, but gives grace to the lowly. [Spr 3,34]

7 Subject yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Clean your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

9 Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11 Speak not against one another, brethren. He that speaks against his brother, or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if ŷou judge the law, ŷou are not doer of the law, but judge.

12 One is the lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy: but who are ŷou who judge ŷour neighbor?

13 Go to now, you who say, today or tomorrow will we go into such a city and spend a year there, and traffic and make gain,

14 you who do not know what will be on the morrow, (for what is your life? It is even a vapor, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing,)

15 instead of your saying, If the Lord should so will and we should live, we will also do this or that.

16 But now you glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil.

17 To him therefore who knows how to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.