1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Do they not come from your evil desires that war within you? 2You desire, and do not have; and so you kill. You envy, but cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight; and still you have not, because you do not ask God for it. 3And when you do ask, you do not get it, because you ask amiss, with the wrong motives – you only ask to indulge your sinful lusts. 4You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world brings conflict and hostility with God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world will make himself an enemy of God. 5Do you think that the Scripture says without cause that, “God yearns jealously for the Spirit that He has caused to dwell in us.”? 6But He gives us more grace. That is why He says in Scripture, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (Prov.3:34).

7Submit yourselves, therefore, 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 (those torn between their love of God and of the world). 9Grieve, mourn, and weep; change your laughter into mourning, and your joy to sadness. 10Humble yourselves in the eyes of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.

11Do not criticize one another, brothers and sisters. Anyone who slanders or judges others, speaks against and criticizes the law; but you are not to judge the law - to sit in judgment of it - but to obey the law. 12There is only one Lawgiver, Who is able to both save and destroy. But you - who are you to judge your neighbor?

13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that city, and spend a year doing business there, buying, selling, and making money.”; 14Why? When you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. For what is your life? It is but a vapor that appears for a brief period, and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live, and do this, or that.” 16But as it is, you ignorantly boast of your arrogant plans and schemes. Such boasting is evil. 17Remember, it is sin for anyone who knows what they should do, but does not do it.