What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”
Parallel translations
- WEB For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”
- KJV For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
- BSB Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”
- NKJV Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
- NASB Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
We should plan while submitting to God's will: 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this.' All our plans must bow to God's sovereignty.
Overview
James offers the corrective to presumption: hold every plan under the Lord's will, acknowledging that both life and action depend on him. This is not a mere verbal formula but a posture of genuine submission to God's sovereign rule over our futures. It teaches believers to plan humbly and prayerfully, trusting the God who works all things according to his purpose (Proverbs 16:9; Acts 18:21).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Prov 19:21There are many plans in a man’s heart, but Yahweh’s counsel will prevail.
- Heb 6:3This will we do, if God permits.
- Lam 3:37Who is he who says, and it comes to pass, when the Lord doesn’t command it?
- Acts 18:21but taking his leave of them, and saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you if God wills,” he set sail from Ephesus.
- Rom 1:10requesting, if by any means now at last I may be prospered by the will of God to come to you.
- 1 Cor 16:7For I do not wish to see you now in passing, but I hope to stay a while with you, if the Lord permits.
- Rom 15:32that I may come to you in joy through the will of God, and together with you, find rest.
- 1 Cor 4:19But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.
- 2 Sam 15:25–26The king said to Zadok, “Carry God’s ark back into the city. If I find favor in Yahweh’s eyes, he will bring me again, and show me both it, and his habitation;
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Christ at the center
The wisdom from above and the royal law of love are the life of those who belong to 'our glorious Lord Jesus Christ' — faith in him made visible in works.
How James 4:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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