8. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded!
9. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom.
10. Humble yourselves in the sight of Adonai, and He shall lift you up.
11. Do not speak evil against one another, brethren. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the Torah and judges the Torah. But if you judge the Torah, you are not a doer of the Torah, but a judge.
12. There is only one lawgiver and judge—the One who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you who judges your neighbor?
13. Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”
14. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”
16. But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
17. Therefore whoever knows the right thing to do and does not do it—for him it is sin.