James 4

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¹Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? ✦ ²You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. ✦ ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. ✦ ⁴Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ✦ ⁵Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? ✦ ⁶But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” ✦ ⁷Therefore submit 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. ✦ ⁹Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ✦ ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. ✦ ¹¹Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ✦ ¹²There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another? ✦ ¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; ✦ ¹⁴whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ✦ ¹⁵Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” ✦ ¹⁶But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ✦ ¹⁷Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is 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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