Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil.
Parallel translations
- WEB But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.
- KJV But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
- BSB As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.
- NKJV But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
- NASB But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
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
Boasting in one's confident plans is arrogant and evil. Self-reliant pride about the future dishonors God.
Overview
James names the merchants' self-assured boasting as arrogance and evil, the opposite of the humble dependence he commended. Such pride exalts the self and ignores the God on whom all things depend. The remedy is the humility that gives glory to God for life and breath, recognizing every good thing as his gift rather than our achievement.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Prov 27:1Don’t boast about tomorrow; for you don’t know what a day may bring.
- 1 Cor 5:6Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump?
- Ps 52:7“Behold, this is the man who didn’t make God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness.”
- Prov 25:14As clouds and wind without rain, so is he who boasts of gifts deceptively.
- Ps 52:1For the Chief Musician. A contemplation by David, when Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, “David has come to Ahimelech’s house.” Why do you boast of mischief, mighty man? God’s loving kindness endures continually.
- 1 Cor 4:7–8For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
- Jas 3:14But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and don’t lie against the truth.
- Isa 47:10For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’
- Rev 18:7However much she glorified herself, and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, ‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.’
- Isa 47:7–8You said, ‘I will be a princess forever;’ so that you did not lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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.
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Original language
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