James 4

Where do the wars and fights among you come from? Don't they come from the desires that are at war inside you?

1From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

Note"Members" in 1611 English means the parts of the body, so "your lusts that war in your members" pictures cravings campaigning inside a person's own body. "Lusts" carries the older broad sense of any strong craving, not only sexual desire; the Greek word covers pleasures of every kind. "Wars and fightings" translates terms for a military campaign and for a single battle, applied here to quarrels inside a group.

2You want what you do not have, so you kill. You covet, and still cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.

2Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

Note"Ye kill" translates the ordinary Greek verb for murder, and readers have long found it startling in a letter to a congregation. The sentence divisions are disputed: the King James pairs "ye kill, and desire to have," while many modern versions read "you kill and covet" as one movement from craving to violence. Some early readers guessed the word was a copyist's error for a similar verb meaning "you envy," but no manuscript supports that.

3And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask for the wrong reasons, so you can spend it on your own pleasures.

3Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Note"Amiss" means wrongly or badly. "Consume it upon your lusts" means spend it right up on your own pleasures, the way money is spent until none is left.

4You adulterers and adulteresses! Don't you know that being a friend of the world means being at war with God? So anyone who chooses to be the world's friend makes himself God's enemy.

4Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

Note"Ye adulterers and adulteresses" is figurative. The Hebrew prophets regularly described Israel turning to other gods as a wife's unfaithfulness, and the word works the same way here. The oldest Greek manuscripts have only the feminine form, "adulteresses," which fits that image; later copies added the masculine. "The world" translates kosmos, meaning human society with its ambitions and standards, not the planet. "Enmity" is the condition of being enemies.

5Or do you think Scripture says for no reason that the spirit he made to live in us longs for us jealously?

5Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

NoteTwo difficulties sit in this verse. First, no known Old Testament passage says these words, so it is unclear what is being quoted. Second, the Greek can be read several ways: the spirit may be the human spirit God placed in people or God's own Spirit, and the verb may mean that God yearns jealously over that spirit, or that the spirit inside a person craves enviously. Translations divide on it, and the wording here keeps one option without settling the question. "In vain" means for nothing, emptily.

6But he gives more grace, more kindness than we have earned. That is why Scripture says, "God stands against proud people, but gives grace to humble people."

6But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

NoteThe quoted line is Proverbs 3:34 as it stands in the Greek Old Testament, the version most readers of this letter used. The Hebrew text of that proverb says God scoffs at scoffers rather than resisting the proud. The same Greek wording is quoted in 1 Peter 5:5.

7So put yourselves under God. Stand against the devil, and he will run from you.

7Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Note"Resist" is a military image: hold your ground against an advance. The Greek word behind "devil" is diabolos, meaning slanderer or accuser, which sits pointedly in a chapter about people speaking against each other.

8Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Make your hearts clean, you whose loyalty is divided.

8Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Note"Draw nigh" simply means come near. Washing the hands and purifying the heart are Temple language, where priests washed before approaching the altar; hands stand for what a person does, the heart for what a person wants. "Double minded" translates a rare Greek word meaning literally "two souled," used earlier in this letter (1:8) of someone pulled in two directions at once.

9Be sorry, mourn, and cry. Turn your laughter into mourning, and your joy into gloom.

9Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

Note"Be afflicted" is a command to feel wretched, to be miserable, rather than a description of harm coming from outside. "Heaviness" in 1611 English means gloom or dejection, not weight.

10Make yourselves low in front of the Lord, and he will lift you up.

10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

11Brothers and sisters, do not speak against one another. Whoever speaks against a fellow believer, or judges him, is speaking against the law and judging the law. And if you judge the law, you are not obeying it: you are acting as its judge.

11Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

Note"Speak not evil" translates a verb for talking against someone, especially behind their back. "The law" most likely means the command this letter has already called the royal law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (2:8): running down a fellow believer breaks it, and treating it as optional sets you above it instead of under it. "Brother" here means a fellow member of the community, not a blood relative.

12There is only one lawgiver, the one who is able to save and to destroy. So who are you to judge someone else?

12There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

Note"Lawgiver" means the one who issued the law in the first place, and so the only one entitled to rule on it. Many Greek manuscripts add "and judge" after the word. What the King James renders "another" is the ordinary Greek word for neighbor, pointing back to the command to love your neighbor.

13Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this city or that one, stay there a year, do business, and make money."

13Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

Note"Go to now" is a 1611 idiom for "look here" or "come now," used to seize attention before a rebuke. The people addressed are traveling merchants, who in that world would sail to a commercial city, settle there for a season, trade, and move on. "Get gain" means turn a profit.

14But you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that shows up for a little while and then disappears.

14Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

Note"Vapour" translates a word for mist or steam, the puff that rises off a pot or shows in cold air. Greek manuscripts differ slightly over whether the sentence reads "you are a mist" or "it is a mist," meaning your life.

15Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that."

15For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

Note"If the Lord will" was a set formula, the equivalent of saying "God willing." Greek and Roman writers used the same phrase of their own gods, and it turns up elsewhere in the New Testament as ordinary talk about travel plans.

16But as it is, you brag about your proud plans. All bragging like that is evil.

16But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.

Note"Rejoice" here carries the older sense of exulting or boasting, not simply being glad. "Boastings" translates a word for the swagger of a braggart, the person who claims resources and powers he does not actually have.

17So anyone who knows the good thing he ought to do, and does not do it, is sinning.

17Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.