¹ From where are wars and fightings among you? Is it not from here: from your pleasures warring in your body-parts?

² Ye desire and do not have, so ye murder. And ye envy and cannot obtain, so ye fight and make war. Ye do not have, because ye do not ask.

³ Ye ask, and do not receive, because ye ask wrongly, so that ye may spend on your pleasures.

⁴ Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is hatred of God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

⁵ Or think ye that the scripture says vainly, The Spirit that he caused to dwell in us yearns with jealousy?

⁶ But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, God is opposed to the arrogant, but gives grace to the lowly.

⁷ Be subordinate therefore to God, but resist the devil and he will flee from you.

⁸ Approach God and he will approach you. Cleanse the hands, ye sinners, and purify the hearts, ye double-minded.

⁹ Be ye sorrowful, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into a downcast look.

¹⁰ Be ye made lower in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.

¹¹ Speak not against each other, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against law and judges law. But if thou judge law, thou are not a doer of law, but a judge.

¹² There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, but thou, who are thou who judge the other man?

¹³ Go now, men who say, Today and tomorrow we will go into this city, and will operate one year there, and will engage in trade and will get gain-

¹⁴ men who know not of the morrow. For what is your life? For it will be a vapor that appears for a little while, and then also vanishes away-

¹⁵ in place of your saying, If the Lord should will, then we will live and do this or that.

¹⁶ But now ye boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

¹⁷ He therefore who knows to do good, and is not doing it, to him it is sin.