Good News Bible

James 4:11-17 Good News Bible (GNB)

11. Do not criticize one another, my brothers and sisters. If you criticize fellow-Christians or judge them, you criticize the Law and judge it. 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, those who do not do the good they know they should do are guilty of sin.