---
title: "James 4 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate · Bless"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/james/4/
description: "The evils that flow from yielding to concupiscence and being friends to this… James 4 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# James 4

James 4 is chapter 4 of 5 in the Letter of James. Here are all 17 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> The evils that flow from yielding to concupiscence and being friends to this world. Admonitions against pride, detraction and the like.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## James 4 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. Where do wars and contentions among you come from? Is it not from this: from your own desires, which battle within your members?
2. You desire, and you do not have. You envy and you kill, and you are unable to obtain. You argue and you fight, and you do not have, because you do not ask.
3. You ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires.
4. You adulterers! Do you not know that the friendship of this world is hostile to God? Therefore, whoever has chosen to be a friend of this world has been made into an enemy of God.
5. Or do you think that Scripture says in vain: “The spirit which lives within you desires unto envy?”
6. But he gives a greater grace. Therefore he says: “God resists the arrogant, but he gives grace to the humble.”
7. Therefore, be subject to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners! And purify your hearts, you duplicitous souls!
9. Be afflicted: mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your gladness into sorrow.
10. Be humbled in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
11. Brothers, do not choose to slander one another. Whoever slanders his brother, or whoever judges his brother, slanders the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.
12. There is one lawgiver and one judge. He is able to destroy, and he is able to set free.
13. But who are you to judge your neighbor? Consider this, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into that city, and certainly we will spend a year there, and we will do business, and we will make our profit,”
14. consider that you do not know what will be tomorrow.
15. For what is your life? It is a mist that appears for a brief time, and afterwards will vanish away. So what you ought to say is: “If the Lord wills,” or, “If we live,” we will do this or that.
16. But now you exult in your arrogance. All such exultation is wicked.
17. Therefore, he who knows that he ought to do a good thing, and does not do it, for him it is a sin.

## James 4 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Unde bella et lites in vobis? nonne hinc: ex concupiscentiis vestris, quæ militant in membris vestris?
2. concupiscitis, et non habetis: occiditis, et zelatis: et non potestis adipisci: litigatis, et belligeratis, et non habetis, propter quod non postulatis.
3. Petitis, et non accipitis: eo quod male petatis: ut in concupiscentiis vestris insumatis.
4. Adulteri, nescitis quia amicitia hujus mundi inimica est Dei? quicumque ergo voluerit amicus esse sæculi hujus, inimicus Dei constituitur.
5. An putatis quia inaniter Scriptura dicat: Ad invidiam concupiscit spiritus qui habitat in vobis?
6. majorem autem dat gratiam. Propter quod dicit: Deus superbis resistit, humilibus autem dat gratiam.
7. Subditi ergo estote Deo, resistite autem diabolo, et fugiet a vobis.
8. Appropinquate Deo, et appropinquabit vobis. Emundate manus, peccatores: et purificate corda, duplices animo.
9. Miseri estote, et lugete, et plorate: risus vester in luctum convertatur, et gaudium in mœrorem.
10. Humiliamini in conspectu Domini, et exaltabit vos.
11. Nolite detrahere alterutrum fratres. Qui detrahit fratri, aut qui judicat fratrem suum, detrahit legi, et judicat legem. Si autem judicas legem, non es factor legis, sed judex.
12. Unus est legislator et judex, qui potest perdere et liberare.
13. Tu autem quis es, qui judicas proximum? Ecce nunc qui dicitis: Hodie, aut crastino ibimus in illam civitatem, et faciemus ibi quidem annum, et mercabimur, et lucrum faciemus:
14. qui ignoratis quid erit in crastino.
15. Quæ est enim vita vestra? vapor est ad modicum parens, et deinceps exterminabitur; pro eo ut dicatis: Si Dominus voluerit. Et: Si vixerimus, faciemus hoc, aut illud.
16. Nunc autem exsultatis in superbiis vestris. Omnis exsultatio talis, maligna est.
17. Scienti igitur bonum facere, et non facienti, peccatum est illi.

## Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph numbers and the Catechism's own section headings (never quoted); text at vatican.va.
- cf. CCC ¶ 2737: Filial Trust ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))
- CCC ¶ 2737: Filial Trust ([vatican.va index](https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM))

## The saints

- “We speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine sayings.” — St. Ambrose, Exposition of Psalm 118, c. 387 (On this theme: verse 8)
- “If a man wants to be always in God's company, he must pray regularly and read regularly. When we pray, we talk to God; when we read, God talks to us.” — St. Isidore of Seville, Sentences, III.8, c. 620 (On this theme: verse 8)

## Read at Mass (US)

- Sun, Sep 19, 2027 (computed): Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time — Second Reading, James 3:16—4:3
- Wed, Feb 23, 2028 (computed): Wednesday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time — First Reading, James 4:13-17

Dates after May 31, 2027 are computed by Bless from the US Lectionary cycle — confirm with your parish.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).