Parallel Bible results for "james 4"

James 4

CJB

BBE

1 What is causing all the quarrels and fights among you? Isn't it your desires battling inside you?
1 What is the cause of wars and fighting among you? is it not in your desires which are at war in your bodies?
2 You desire things and don't have them. You kill, and you are jealous, and you still can't get them. So you fight and quarrel. The reason you don't have is that you don't pray!
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.
3 Or you pray and don't receive, because you pray with the wrong motive, that of wanting to indulge your own desires.
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.
4 You unfaithful wives! Don't you know that loving the world is hating God? Whoever chooses to be the world's friend makes himself God's enemy!
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.
5 Or do you suppose the Scripture speaks in vain when it says that there is a spirit in us which longs to envy?
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?
6 But the grace he gives is greater, which is why it says, "God opposes the arrogant, but to the humble he gives grace."
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.
7 Therefore, submit to God. Moreover, take a stand against the Adversary, and he will flee from you.
7 For this cause be ruled by God; but make war on the Evil One and he will be put to flight before you.
8 Come close to God, and he will come close to you. Clean your hands, sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded people!
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.
9 Wail, mourn, sob! Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom!
9 Be troubled, with sorrow and weeping; let your laughing be turned to sorrow and your joy to grief.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
10 Make yourselves low in the eyes of the Lord and you will be lifted up by him.
11 Brothers, stop speaking against each other! Whoever speaks against a brother or judges a brother is speaking against Torah and judging Torah. And if you judge Torah, you are not a doer of what Torah says, but a judge.
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.
12 There is but one Giver of Torah; he is also the Judge, with the power to deliver and to destroy. Who do you think you are, judging your fellow human being?
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?
13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a city, stay there a year trading and make a profit"!
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:
14 You don't even know if you will be alive tomorrow! For all you are is a mist that appears for a little while and then disappears.
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.
15 Instead, you ought to say, "If ADONAI wants it to happen, we will live" to do this or that.
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.
16 But as it is, in your arrogance you boast. All such boasting is evil.
16 But now you go on glorying in your pride: and all such glorying is evil.
17 So then, anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it is committing a sin.
17 The man who has knowledge of how to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.