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From where [are] wars and fightings among you? [Is it] not from here, out of your passions warring in your members?
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You desire, and do not have, [so] you murder; and you are zealous, and are not able to attain, [so] you fight and war; and you do not have, because of your not asking;
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you ask, and you do not receive, because you ask badly, that you may spend [it] in your pleasures.
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Adulterers and adulteresses! Have you not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever, then, may intend to be a friend of the world, he is designated [as] an enemy of God.
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Or, do you think that the Writing says emptily, “The Spirit that has dwelt in us yearns with envy,”
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but [God] gives greater grace, for this reason it says, “God sets Himself up against proud ones, and He gives grace to lowly ones.”
Drawing Near to God
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Be subject, then, to God; stand up against the Devil, and he will flee from you;
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draw near to God, and He will draw near to you; cleanse hands, you sinners! And purify hearts, you split-souled!
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Be exceedingly afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and the joy to heaviness;
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be made low before the LORD, and He will exalt you.
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Do not speak against one another, brothers; he who is speaking against a brother, and is judging his brother, speaks against law, and judges law, and if you judge law, you are not a doer of law but a judge.
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One is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy; you—who are you that judges the other?
Do Not Boast about Tomorrow
(Proverbs 27:1)
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Go, now, you who are saying, “Today and tomorrow we will go on to such a city, and will pass there one year, and traffic, and make gain,”
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who does not know the thing of tomorrow; for what is your life? For it is a vapor that is appearing for a little [while], and then is vanishing;
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instead, you [ought] to say, “If the LORD may will, we will live, and do this or that”;
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but now you glory in your pride; all such glorying is evil;
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to him, then, knowing to do good, and not doing [it], it is sin to him.
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