Warning Against Worldliness

James 4

1 Whence [are] wars and fightings among you? not thence -- out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members? 2 ye desire, and ye have not; ye murder, and are zealous, and are not able to attain; ye fight and war, and ye have not, because of your not asking; 3 ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend [it]. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! have ye not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever, then, may counsel to be a friend of the world, an enemy of God he is set. 5 Do ye think that emptily the Writing saith, `To envy earnestly desireth the spirit that did dwell in us,' 6 and greater grace he doth give, wherefore he saith, `God against proud ones doth set Himself up, and to lowly ones He doth give grace?' 7 be subject, then, to God; stand up against the devil, and he will flee from you; 8 draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you; cleanse hands, ye sinners! and purify hearts, ye two-souled! 9 be exceeding afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter to mourning be turned, and the joy to heaviness; 10 be made low before the Lord, and He shall exalt you.

11 Speak not one against another, brethren; he who is speaking against a brother, and is judging his brother, doth speak against law, and doth judge law, and if law thou dost judge, thou art not a doer of law but a judge; 12 one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; thou -- who art thou that dost judge the other?

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