James · 17 verses
James 4
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A year's business plan is drawn up with admirable precision, then its planners are compared to a mist that appears and vanishes.
Passions, pride, and the retreating devilvv. 1–10
Conflicts and quarrels rise from passions at war within the people: craving, killing, coveting, asking badly, and squandering what is received. Friendship with the world is called hostility toward God, while God gives grace to the humble. Then comes the chapter's brisk little encounter with the devil: resistance is enough to send him fleeing. Hands are to be cleansed, hearts purified, laughter turned to mourning, and the humble exalted.
One Lawgiver, one Judgevv. 11–12
The people are told not to slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it, becoming a judge rather than a practitioner of the law. The argument ends by placing saving and destroying with the one Lawgiver and Judge, and leaving the would-be judge with a pointed question about judging a neighbor.
The itinerary becomes mistvv. 13–17
Some people announce a remarkably tidy scheme: today or tomorrow, a city, a year, business, and profit. The reply removes the floor beneath the itinerary: tomorrow is unknown, and life is a mist that appears briefly and vanishes. The proper phrase is “If the Lord is willing”; proud intentions are called evil boasting, and knowing the right thing without doing it is sin.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Jas 4:1What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?
Jas 4:2You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.
Jas 4:3And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures.
Jas 4:4You adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.
Jas 4:5Or do you think the Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to dwell in us yearns with envy?
Jas 4:6But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Jas 4:7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Jas 4:8Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Jas 4:9Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
Jas 4:10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Jas 4:11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. And if you judge the law, you are not a practitioner of the law, but a judge of it.
Jas 4:12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?
Jas 4:13Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”
Jas 4:14You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Jas 4:15Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”
Jas 4:16As it is, you boast in your proud intentions. All such boasting is evil.
Jas 4:17Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do, yet fails to do it, is guilty of sin.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 294 passages were voted onto 17 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 8Psalms 145:18The LORD is near to all who call on Him, to all who call out to Him in truth.
- 71 Peter 5:8–9Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
- 7Ephesians 4:27and do not give the devil a foothold.
- 8Hebrews 10:22let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
- 7Ephesians 6:11–12Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes.
- 8Malachi 3:7Yet from the days of your fathers, you have turned away from My statutes and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Hosts. “But you ask, ‘How can we return?’
- 41 John 2:15–16Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
- 71 Peter 5:6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, so that in due time He may exalt you.
- 8Zechariah 1:3So tell the people that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Return to Me, declares the LORD of Hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of Hosts.’
- 8Isaiah 55:6–7Seek the LORD while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.
- 4Romans 8:7because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
- 6Matthew 23:12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
- 17John 9:41“If you were blind,” Jesus replied, “you would not be guilty of sin. But since you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
- 82 Chronicles 15:2So he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.
- 6Proverbs 3:34He mocks the mockers, but gives grace to the humble.
- 10Psalms 147:6The LORD sustains the humble, but casts the wicked to the ground.
Onward