¹Whence comewars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members? ²Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not. ³Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures. ⁴Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying? ⁶But he giveth more grace. Wherefore the scripture saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble. ⁷Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded. ⁹Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you. ¹¹Speak not one against another, brethren. He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judgest the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. ¹²One only is the lawgiver and judge, even he who is able to save and to destroy: but who art thou that judgest thy neighbor? ¹³Come now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: ¹⁴whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. ¹⁵For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that. ¹⁶But now ye glory in your vauntings: all such glorying is evil.

¹⁷To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.