James 4 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Where do all the fights and conflicts among you come from? Don't they come from the cravings that are at war inside you?

You want things and don't get them, so you kill. You're desperate to have what others have but can't get it, so you fight and argue. You don't have because you don't ask God.

And when you do ask, you don't receive because you're asking with the wrong motives — you just want to spend it on your own cravings.

You unfaithful people! Don't you realize that friendship with the world's way of doing things means hostility toward God? Whoever chooses to be a friend of the world's system makes themselves an enemy of God.

Or do you think the Scripture says this for no reason? The spirit he placed in us longs for us with fierce devotion.

But he gives even greater generous favor. That's why it says: "God stands against the arrogant, but gives generous favor to the humble."

So submit yourselves to God. Stand your ground against the devil, and he will run from you.

Come close to God, and he will come close to you. Clean your hands, you who do wrong, and make your hearts undivided, you who are torn between loyalties.

Grieve over this. Mourn and weep. Let your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to heaviness.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Don't tear each other down, brothers and sisters. Anyone who tears down a fellow believer or judges them is tearing down the law and judging the law. And if you judge the law, you're not following it — you've put yourself above it.

There is only one lawgiver and judge — the one who has the power to rescue and to destroy. So who do you think you are to judge your neighbor?

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we'll head to this city, spend a year there, do business, and make money."

You don't even know what your life will look like tomorrow! You're a mist that shows up for a little while and then vanishes.

Instead, you should say, "If the Lord wants it, we'll live and do this or that."

But instead, you boast about your grand plans. All boasting like that is wrong.

So if you know what's right to do and you don't do it — that's failure.