What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn't it the whole army of evil desires at war within you?
You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you don't ask God for it.
And even when you do ask, you don't get it because your whole motive is wrong--you want only what will give you pleasure.
You adulterers! Don't you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can't be a friend of God.
What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful?
He gives us more and more strength to stand against such evil desires. As the Scriptures say, "God sets himself against the proud, but he shows favor to the humble."
So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites.
Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor.
Don't speak evil against each other, my dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize each other and condemn each other, then you are criticizing and condemning God's law. But you are not a judge who can decide whether the law is right or wrong. Your job is to obey it.
God alone, who made the law, can rightly judge among us. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to condemn your neighbor?
Look here, you people who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit."
How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone.
What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that."
Otherwise you will be boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.
Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.