Parallel Bible results for "james 4"

James 4

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NCV

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
1 Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that war within you.
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
2 You want things, but you do not have them. So you are ready to kill and are jealous of other people, but you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You do not get what you want, because you do not ask God.
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
3 Or when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things so you can use them for your own pleasures.
4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
4 So, you are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. Anyone who wants to be a friend of the world becomes God's enemy.
5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us ?
5 Do you think the Scripture means nothing that says, "The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone?"
6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
6 But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says, "God is against the proud, but he gives grace to the humble."
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
7 So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you.
8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
8 Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You sinners, clean sin out of your lives. You who are trying to follow God and the world at the same time, make your thinking pure.
9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
9 Be sad, cry, and weep! Change your laughter into crying and your joy into sadness.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
10 Don't be too proud in the Lord's presence, and he will make you great.
11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.
11 Brothers and sisters, do not tell evil lies about each other. If you speak against your fellow believers or judge them, you are judging and speaking against the law they follow. And when you are judging the law, you are no longer a follower of the law. You have become a judge.
12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
12 God is the only Lawmaker and Judge. He is the only One who can save and destroy. So it is not right for you to judge your neighbor.
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”
13 Some of you say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money."
14 Why, you 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.
14 But you do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away.
15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
15 So you should say, "If the Lord wants, we will live and do this or that."
16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
16 But now you are proud and you brag. All of this bragging is wrong.
17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
17 Anyone who knows the right thing to do, but does not do it, is sinning.
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Scripture taken from the New Century Version. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.