New Revised Standard NRS
The Bible in Basic English BBE
1 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?
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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 want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask.
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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 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
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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 Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
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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 that it is for nothing that the scripture says, "God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"?
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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 he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
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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 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
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For this cause be ruled by God; but make war on the Evil One and he will be put to flight before you.
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
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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 Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.
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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 exalt you.
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Make yourselves low in the eyes of the Lord and you will be lifted up by him.
11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.
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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 one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?
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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 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money."
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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 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
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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 the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that."
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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 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
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But now you go on glorying in your pride: and all such glorying is evil.
17 Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.
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The man who has knowledge of how to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The Bible in Basic English is in the public domain.