| Berean Study Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you? | 1What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires 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. | 2You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. |
| 3And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures. | 3And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. |
| 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. | 4You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself 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? | 5Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him. |
| 6But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” | 6And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” |
| 7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. | 7So humble yourselves before 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. | 8Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. |
| 9Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom. | 9Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. |
| 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. | 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor. Warning against Judging Others |
| 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. | 11Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. |
| 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor? | 12God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor? Warning about Self-Confidence |
| 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.” | 13Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there 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. | 14How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. |
| 15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” | 15What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” |
| 16As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil. | 16Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil. |
| 17Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin. | 17Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it. |
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