1From where [are] wars and fightings among you? [Is it] not from here, out of your passions warring in your members? 2You desire, and do not have, [so] you murder; and you are zealous, and are not able to attain, [so] you fight and war; and you do not have, because of your not asking; 3you ask, and you do not receive, because you ask badly, that you may spend [it] in your pleasures. 4Adulterers and adulteresses! Have you not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever, then, may intend to be a friend of the world, he is designated [as] an enemy of God. 5Or, do you think that the Writing says emptily, “The Spirit that has dwelt in us yearns with envy,” 6but [God] gives greater grace, for this reason it says, “God sets Himself up against proud ones, and He gives grace to lowly ones.”

7Be subject, then, to God; stand up against the Devil, and he will flee from you; 8draw near to God, and He will draw near to you; cleanse hands, you sinners! And purify hearts, you split-souled! 9Be exceedingly afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and the joy to heaviness; 10be made low before the LORD, and He will exalt you.

11Do not speak against one another, brothers; he who is speaking against a brother, and is judging his brother, speaks against law, and judges law, and if you judge law, you are not a doer of law but a judge. 12One is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; you—who are you that judges the other?

13Go, now, you who are saying, “Today and tomorrow we will go on to such a city, and will pass there one year, and traffic, and make gain,” 14who does not know the thing of tomorrow; for what is your life? For it is a vapor that is appearing for a little [while], and then is vanishing; 15instead, you [ought] to say, “If the LORD may will, we will live, and do this or that”; 16but now you glory in your pride; all such glorying is evil; 17to him, then, knowing to do good, and not doing [it], it is sin to him.