Warning Against Worldliness
1 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions1 are yat war within you?2 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask zwrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 aYou adulterous people!3 Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? bTherefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit cthat he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But dhe gives more grace. Therefore it says, e“God opposes the proud but dgives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. fResist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 gDraw near to God, and he will draw near to you. hCleanse your hands, you sinners, and ipurify your hearts, jyou double-minded. 9 kBe wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 lHumble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11 mDo not speak evil against one another, brothers.4 The one who speaks against a brother or njudges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is only oone lawgiver and pjudge, he who is able to save and qto destroy. But rwho are you to judge your neighbor?
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Come now, you who say, s“Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For tyou are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, u“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. vAll such boasting is evil. 17 wSo whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Do Not Forsake Me, O Lord
A Psalm of David, lfor the memorial offering.
1 O Lord, mrebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath!
2 For your narrows have sunk into me,
and your hand ohas come down on me.
3 There is pno soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my qbones
because of my sin.
4 For my riniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.
5 My wounds stink and fester
because of my foolishness,
6 I am sutterly bowed down and tprostrate;
all the day I ugo about mourning.
7 For my sides are filled with burning,
and there is pno soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and crushed;
I vgroan because of the tumult of my heart.
9 O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my wsighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and xthe light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My yfriends and companions zstand aloof from my aplague,
and my nearest kin bstand far off.
12 Those who seek my life clay their snares;
those who seek my hurt dspeak of ruin
and meditate etreachery all day long.
13 But I am like a deaf man; I do not hear,
like fa mute man who does not open his mouth.
14 I have become like a man who does not hear,
and in whose mouth are no grebukes.
15 But for hyou, O Lord, do I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
16 For I said, “Only ilet them not rejoice over me,
17 For I am lready to fall,
and my pain is ever before me.
18 I mconfess my iniquity;
I am nsorry for my sin.
19 But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty,
and many are those who hate me owrongfully.
20 Those who prender me evil for good
21 Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not sfar from me!
22 tMake haste to help me,
O Lord, my usalvation!
