41 Whence [come] wars and whence fightings among you? [Is it] not thence,—from your pleasures, which war in your members? 2 Ye lust and have not: ye kill and are full of envy, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; ye have not because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask evilly, that ye may consume [it] in your pleasures. 4 Adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore is minded to be [the] friend of the world is constituted enemy of God. 5 Think ye that the scripture speaks in vain? Does the Spirit which has taken his abode in us desire enviously? 6 But he gives more grace. Wherefore he says, God sets himself against [the] proud, but gives grace to [the] lowly. 7 Subject yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse [your] hands, sinners, and purify [your] hearts, ye double-minded. 9 Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness. 10 Humble yourselves before [the] Lord, and he shall exalt you.
11 Speak not against one another, brethren. He that speaks against [his] brother, or judges his brother, speaks against [the] law and judges [the] law. But if thou judgest [the] law, thou art not doer of [the] law, but judge. 12 One is the lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou who judgest thy neighbour?
13 Go to now, ye who say, To-day or to-morrow will we go into such a city and spend a year there, and traffic and make gain, 14 ye who do not know what will be on the morrow, ([for] what [is] your life? It is even a vapour, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing,) 15 instead of your saying, If the Lord should [so] will and we should live, we will also do this or that. 16 But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil. 17 To him therefore who knows how to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.
31 Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive greater judgment. 2 For we all often offend. If any one offend not in word, he [is] a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body too. 3 Behold, we put the bits in the mouths of the horses, that they may obey us, and we turn round their whole bodies. 4 Behold also the ships, which are so great, and driven by violent winds, are turned about by a very small rudder, wherever the pleasure of the helmsman will. 5 Thus also the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. See how little a fire, how large a wood it kindles! 6 and the tongue [is] fire, the world of unrighteousness; the tongue is set in our members, the defiler of the whole body, and which sets fire to the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell. 7 For every species both of beasts and of birds, both of creeping things and of sea animals, is tamed and has been tamed by the human species; 8 but the tongue can no one among men tame; [it is] an unsettled evil, full of death-bringing poison. 9 Therewith bless we the Lord and Father, and therewith curse we men made after [the] likeness of God. 10 Out of the same mouth goes forth blessing and cursing. It is not right, my brethren, that these things should be thus. 11 Does the fountain, out of the same opening, pour forth sweet and bitter? 12 Can, my brethren, a fig produce olives, or a vine figs? Neither [can] salt [water] make sweet water.
13 Who [is] wise and understanding among you; let him shew out of a good conversation his works in meekness of wisdom; 14 but if ye have bitter emulation and strife in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom which comes down from above, but earthly, natural, devilish. 16 For where emulation and strife [are], there [is] disorder and every evil thing. 17 But the wisdom from above first is pure, then peaceful, gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruits, unquestioning, unfeigned. 18 But [the] fruit of righteousness in peace is sown for them that make peace.
