1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 

2 You lust and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. 

3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures. 

4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 

5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who

lives in us yearns jealously”? 

6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud,

but gives grace to the humble.”

7 Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee

from 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. 

9 Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to

mourning, and your joy to gloom. 

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

11 Don’t speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks

against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law

and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of

the law, but a judge. 

When I first saw this verse I have to admit that I was so confused.

The Law as I saw it condemned those that transgressed, who broke

the Law. And I saw myself as doing the will of God when I

condemned those who went against the Law of God. But here James is not talking to the Jews who are under the Law given by Moses, the Mosaic Law. He is taking to the Church, the Christians, who are under the Law of Christ. 

12 Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.” 14 Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. 15 For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.” 16 But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil. 17 To him therefore who knows to do good, and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.