The Bible in Basic English BBE
Orthodox Jewish Bible OJB
1 What is the cause of wars and fighting among you? is it not in your desires which are at war in your bodies?
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From where do milchamot (wars) come? What is their goirem (driving force)? And from where come fights among you? Is it not from here, from the ta’avot (lusts) of you warring in your evarim (members)?
2 You are burning with desire, and have not your desire, so you put men to death; you are full of envy, and you are not able to get your desire, so you are fighting and making war; you have not your desire, because you do not make request for it.
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You lust for something and you do not have it; you kill and you envy and you are not able to obtain. You get involved in machalokot (divisions of dissensions) and fights. You do not have because you fail to daven with your request.
3 You make your request but you do not get it, because your request has been wrongly made, desiring the thing only so that you may make use of it for your pleasure.
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Or you make techinot (petitions) and you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, that on your ta’avot (lusts) you may spend what you receive. [TEHILLIM 18:41; 66:18]
4 O you who are false to God, do you not see that the friends of this world are not God's friends? Every man desiring to be a friend of this world makes himself a hater of God.
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No’efot (adulterers)! Do you not have da’as that to have shaichus (closeness, friendship, intimacy) with the Olam Hazeh is eyvah im Hashem (enmity with G-d)? Therefore, whoever chooses to make the Olam Hazeh his Oihev is made an Oyev (Enemy) of Hashem. [YESHAYAH 54:4; YIRMEYAH 3:20; HOSHEA 2:2-5; 3:1; 9:1]
5 Or does it seem to you that it is for nothing that the holy Writings say, The spirit which God put into our hearts has a strong desire for us?
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Or do you think that in vain the Kitvei Hakodesh attests that Hashem yearns jealously over the Ruach Hakodesh He causes to dwell in us?
6 But he gives more grace. So that the Writings say, God is against the men of pride, but he gives grace to those who make themselves low before him.
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But He gives all the more Chen v’Chesed! Therefore it says, "Hashem LALETZIM HU YALITZ V’LA’ANAYIM YITEN CHEN ("Hashem opposes the proud mocker but gives grace to the humble" [MISHLE 3:34]).
7 For this cause be ruled by God; but make war on the Evil One and he will be put to flight before you.
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Submit yourselves in mishma’at (obedience) to Hashem. Resist Hasatan, and he will flee from you.
8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Make your hands clean, you evil-doers; put away deceit from your hearts, you false in mind.
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Draw near to Hashem and Hashem will draw near to you. Cleanse your yadayim (hands), you chote’im (sinners)! And purify your levavot, you anashim of double mind! [TEHILLIM 73:28; ZECHARYAH 1:3; MALACHI 3:7; YESHAYAH 1:16; TEHILLIM 24:4; 119:113; YIRMEYAH 4:14]
9 Be troubled, with sorrow and weeping; let your laughing be turned to sorrow and your joy to grief.
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Lament and mourn and weep. Let the tzechok (laughter) of you be changed to avelut (mourning), and the simcha of you be turned to tugah (sadness).
10 Make yourselves low in the eyes of the Lord and you will be lifted up by him.
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Be humbled before Hashem and He will exalt you. [IYOV 5:11]
11 Do not say evil against one another, my brothers. He who says evil against his brother or makes himself his brother's judge, says evil against the law and is judging the law: and in judging the law you become, not a doer of the law but a judge.
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Do not speak lashon hora against an Ach b’Moshiach. The one speaking against an Ach b’Moshiach or setting himself up as a shofet (judge) of his Ach b’Moshiach speaks against the Torah and sets himself up as shofet of the Torah. Now if the Torah you judge, you are not Shomrei HaTorah but a shofet.
12 There is only one judge and law-giver, even he who has the power of salvation and of destruction; but who are you to be your neighbour's judge?
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One is the Mekhokek (Law-Giver) and HaShofet (The Judge), the One who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you, the one who has set yourself up as the shofet of your re’a (neighbor)?
13 How foolish it is to say, Today or tomorrow we will go into this town, and be there for a year and do business there and get wealth:
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Come now, you who say, "Hayom (today) or makhar (tomorrow) we will go into this or that city and we will do business there a year and will sell and make a revach (profit)."
14 When you are not certain what will take place tomorrow. What is your life? It is a mist, which is seen for a little time and then is gone.
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Yet you do not even have da’as of what tomorrow’s "yom" may bring. Look at your life! Are you not an ed (mist), appearing a short time, then indeed disappearing? [IYOV 7:7; TEHILLIM 39:5; 102:3; 144:4; YESHAYAH 2:22]
15 But the right thing to say would be, If it is the Lord's pleasure and if we are still living, we will do this and that.
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Instead of this, you ought to say "Im yirtzeh Hashem" ("if the L-rd wills") "we will live, also we will do this or that."
16 But now you go on glorying in your pride: and all such glorying is evil.
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But now you boast in your pretensions. All such ravrevanut (boastfulness) is ra’ah (evil, wickedness).
17 The man who has knowledge of how to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
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To the one having da’as, therefore, knowing to do tov and not doing it, to him it is chet.
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The Orthodox Jewish Bible fourth edition, OJB. Copyright 2002,2003,2008,2010, 2011 by Artists for Israel International. All rights reserved.