MODERN LITERAL VERSION

4:1 From where do the wars and quarrels among you* come from? Is it not from here, from your* own sensual-delights which are warring in your* members?
4:2 You* lust and do not have; you* murder and are jealous and cannot obtain; you* quarrel and make war; you* do not have, because you* do not ask.
4:3 You* ask and do not receive, because you* ask evilly, that* you* may spend it in your* sensual-delights.

4:4 Adulterers and adulteresses, do you* not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wills to be a friend of the world is standing as an enemy of God.
4:5 Or are you* thinking that the Scripture speaks with emptiness? Does the Spirit which dwells in us long to envy?
4:6 But he is giving more grace. Hence the Scripture says, ‘God resists the haughty, but gives grace to the humble.' {Prov 3:34}

4:7 Therefore be subject to God and withstand the Devil and he will flee from you*.
4:8 Draw near to God and he will draw near to you*. You* sinners! You* indecisive! Cleanse your* hands and purify your* hearts!
4:9 Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your* laughter be turned to mourning and your* joy to gloom.
4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will exalt you*.

4:11 Brethren do not speak against one another. He who is speaking against a brother and is judging his brother, is speaking against the law and is judging the law. Now if you are judging the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
4:12 There is the one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; who are you who judges another?

4:13 Come now, you* who are saying, Today and tomorrow, we should go into this city and spend one year there and be a merchant and make* a gain.
4:14 You* do not know what tomorrow will bring, for* what is your* life? For* it will be a vapor, which appears for a little while and thereafter disappears.
4:15 Instead of that, you* should say, If the Lord wills, and we should also live, then we may do this or that.
4:16 But now you* boast in your* egotism. All such boasting is evil.
4:17 Therefore knowing to do good and not doing it, to him, it is sin.