[a]Suffer afflictions, and sorrow ye, and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into [b]heaviness.

10 (A)Cast down yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

11 [c]Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, or he that condemneth his brother, speaketh evil of the Law, and condemneth the Law: and if thou condemnest the Law, thou art not an observer of the Law, but a judge.

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Footnotes

  1. James 4:9 He goeth on in the same comparison of contraries, and setteth against those profane joys with an earnest sorrow of mind, and against pride and arrogance, holy modesty.
  2. James 4:9 By this word the Greeks meant an heaviness joined with shamefastness, which is to be seen in a cast down countenance, and settled as it were upon the ground.
  3. James 4:11 He reprehended most sharply another double mischief of pride: the one is in that the proud and arrogant will have other men to live according to their will and pleasure and therefore they do most arrogantly condemn whatsoever pleaseth them not: which thing cannot be done without great injury to our only Lawmaker, for by this means his Laws are found fault withal, as not circumspectly enough written, and men challenge that unto themselves which properly belongeth to God alone, in that they lay a Law upon men’s consciences.

Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.(A) 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.(B)

11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another.(C) Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister[a] or judges them(D) speaks against the law(E) and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it,(F) but sitting in judgment on it.

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Footnotes

  1. James 4:11 The Greek word for brother or sister (adelphos) refers here to a believer, whether man or woman, as part of God’s family.