James 4

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¹What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you? ✦ ²You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask. ✦ ³And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures. ✦ ⁴You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God. ✦ ⁵Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy? ✦ ⁶But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” ✦ ⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. 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 purify your hearts, you double-minded. ✦ ⁹Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom. ✦ ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. ✦ ¹¹Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. And if you judge the law, you are not a practitioner of the law, but a judge of it. ✦ ¹²There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? ✦ ¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” ✦ ¹⁴You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ✦ ¹⁵Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” ✦ ¹⁶As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil. ✦ ¹⁷Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin. ✦

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Where this chapter connects

Jas 1 ·8 Jas 5 ·5 Rom 14 ·5 Rom 7 ·5 1 Pet 5 ·4 2 Chr 33 ·4 Rom 2 ·4 Dan 4 ·4

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 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.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — James videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on James 4YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — James 4David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on JamesMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — James 4Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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