1Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you. 2You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it. 3And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures. 4Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy. 5Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, "The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires." 6But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." 7So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you. 8Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites! 9Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom! 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

11Do not criticize one another, my friends. If you criticize or judge another Christian, you criticize and judge the Law. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it. 12God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are, to judge someone else? 13Now listen to me, you that say, "Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money." 14You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears. 15What you should say is this: "If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that." 16But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong. 17So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin.

Reflect

A theme that runs through this chapter is the need to humble ourselves to God, whether when it comes time to pray, or when we are talking to or about other people, or when we plan and think about tomorrow. Do you take comfort in James's words, or do they trouble you? Why?

Pray

Lord, I confess that you are much greater than I am, and even when I think my life is in control, I really am not the master of my own life. You are my Lord, and my hope is in you. Amen.

Prayer Concern

Family quarrels