Reading Plan
Comprehensive Reading Plan (365 days) New Testament Reading Plan (83 days) Old Testament Plan (282 days) Old/New Testament Plan (365 days) Survey Reading Plan (61 days) Through-the-Bible Reading Plan (365 days)
Bible Version
Apostles' Bible Complete (2004) King James Version (1769) New King James Version (1982) Today's English Version (Good News Bible) (1992) Voice In Wilderness (2006)
1
Where do all the fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you.
2
You want things, but you cannot have them, so you are ready to kill; you strongly desire things, but you cannot get them, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have what you want because you do not ask God for it.
3
And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures.
4
Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.
5
Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, "The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires."
6
But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
7
So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you.
8
Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites!
9
Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!
10
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
11
Do not criticize one another, my friends. If you criticize or judge another Christian, you criticize and judge the Law. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it.
12
God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are, to judge someone else?
13
Now listen to me, you that say, "Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money."
14
You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears.
15
What you should say is this: "If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that."
16
But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong.
17
So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin.
1
And now, you rich people, listen to me! Weep and wail over the miseries that are coming upon you!
2
Your riches have rotted away, and your clothes have been eaten by moths.
3
Your gold and silver are covered with rust, and this rust will be a witness against you and will eat up your flesh like fire. You have piled up riches in these last days.
4
You have not paid any wages to those who work in your fields. Listen to their complaints! The cries of those who gather in your crops have reached the ears of God, the Lord Almighty.
5
Your life here on earth has been full of luxury and pleasure. You have made yourselves fat for the day of slaughter.
6
You have condemned and murdered innocent people, and they do not resist you.
7
Be patient, then, my friends, until the Lord comes. See how patient farmers are as they wait for their land to produce precious crops. They wait patiently for the autumn and spring rains.
8
You also must be patient. Keep your hopes high, for the day of the Lord's coming is near.
9
Do not complain against one another, my friends, so that God will not judge you. The Judge is near, ready to appear.
10
My friends, remember the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Take them as examples of patient endurance under suffering.
11
We call them happy because they endured. You have heard of Job's patience, and you know how the Lord provided for him in the end. For the Lord is full of mercy and compassion.
12
Above all, my friends, do not use an oath when you make a promise. Do not swear by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Say only "Yes" when you mean yes, and "No" when you mean no, and then you will not come under God's judgment.
13
Are any among you in trouble? They should pray. Are any among you happy? They should sing praises.
14
Are any among you sick? They should send for the church elders, who will pray for them and rub olive oil on them in the name of the Lord.
15
This prayer made in faith will heal the sick; the Lord will restore them to health, and the sins they have committed will be forgiven.
16
So then, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you will be healed. The prayer of a good person has a powerful effect.
17
Elijah was the same kind of person as we are. He prayed earnestly that there would be no rain, and no rain fell on the land for three and a half years.
18
Once again he prayed, and the sky poured out its rain and the earth produced its crops.
19
My friends, if any of you wander away from the truth and another one brings you back again,
20
remember this: whoever turns a sinner back from the wrong way will save that sinner's soul from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins.
