A thoughtful guide for your walk of faith Read with context, practice with grace.
General Letters · WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE

James 4

Wholehearted faith becomes visible through endurance, speech, justice, humility, and action.

New Testament

James 4

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

2You 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.

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

4You 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.

5Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”?

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

7Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.

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

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

11Don’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.

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

13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.”

14Yet 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.

15For you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.”

16But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.

17To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.

READ IN CONTEXT

Before applying this chapter

Wholehearted faith becomes visible through endurance, speech, justice, humility, and action. Read James 4 within the complete James overview, and use the contextual Bible reading guide before forming a personal application. Chapter divisions aid navigation, but the literary unit may begin earlier or continue into the next chapter.

Observe first

Mark repeated words, changes of speaker, commands, promises, contrasts, questions, and the relationship between paragraphs.

Apply responsibly

Distinguish description from command and immediate audience from later readers before forming a personal application.

TEXT-DERIVED READING NOTES

What to notice in James 4

James 4 contains 17 verses and about 350 words in this translation. These observations come from the chapter itself; they are prompts for close reading, not claims about its only possible meaning.

The opening movement

Verse 1 begins: “Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?” Ask what situation, voice, image, or argument this opening establishes for everything that follows.

The closing movement

Verse 17 closes: “To him therefore who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.” Compare the ending with the opening and note what changed, resolved, intensified, or remained open.

Vocabulary worth tracing

Recurring or prominent content words include don’t, will, therefore, judge, pleasures, make. Follow where each word appears and whether its meaning shifts with the speaker or setting.

COMMON QUESTIONS

About James 4

Which Bible translation is shown here?+

This page reproduces the World English Bible Protestant edition (WEBP), a modern-English translation dedicated to the public domain.

How should I cite a specific verse?+

Use the book, chapter, and verse—for example, James 4:1—and name the World English Bible if the wording matters. Each verse number above is a direct anchor link.

Does the chapter number define the complete literary unit?+

Not always. Chapter and verse numbers were added for navigation. Check the paragraphs, scenes, poetic stanzas, or argument before and after this chapter.

A SMALL NEXT STEP

You do not have to have everything figured out.

Begin with one honest question, one passage read carefully, and one faithful next step.

Start with prayer