Bible In Poetry: James 4 Poem by Dr John Celes

Submit Yourselves to God:

1 What causes fights, quarrels ’mongst you?
Do not they come from within you,
From battles of your desires?
2You want something but don't get it.
You kill, covet, but you can’t have all.
You quarrel, fight without limits.
You don’t get for, you don’t ask God.
3 When you ask God, you don’t receive,
Because you ask with wrong motives.
You spend a lot on your pleasures.
4 You people ones, adulterous,
Do not you know that world’s friendship,
Is hatred you bear towards God?
He who is a friend of the world
Becomes an enemy of God.
5 Do you then think that Scripture says
Without reason that our spirit
He caused to live in us envies?
6 But He gives us more grace, it says:
'God opposes the proud earthlings,
But gives grace to the humble ones.'
7 Submit yourselves to almighty;
Resist devils, and they flee you.
8 Go near to God and He comes near.
Wash well your hands, you sinners all,
And purify your hearts and minds.
9 Grieve, mourn and wail, if needed then.
Change laughter to mourning at times.
And change your joy to gloom sometimes.
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord,
And He will surely lift you up.
11 Don’t practice slander of brethren.
He who speaks against his brother
Or judges him speaks against law.
And when you judge the law, you aren’t
Keeping it, but judging on it.
12 There is just one Lawgiver, Judge,
The one who can save and destroy.
But who are you to judge others?
Boasting About Tomorrow:
13 You who say, 'Today or tomorrow
We’ll go to this or that city,
Spend there a year, and do business
And make a lot of money then.'
14 You don’t know what the morrow brings.
What is your life? You are a mist
That stays a while and vanishes.
15 Instead, you ought to say then man,
'If it is will of Lord, we’ll live;
Do this or that as God goads you.'
16 Then as it is, you boast and brag.
Such boasting comes from evil minds.
17 Yet, one who knows what good to do,
But does not do, then sins instead.