James 4:4

Plain English Version

If you are like that, it shows that you left God. You stopped following him and joined the other people in the world that hate God. They are God’s enemies. So if you join up with people like that, you make yourself God’s enemy. You ran away from God. You are just like a woman that leaves her husband and runs away with another man.

Cross References

Genesis 3:15

The woman’s kids will hate you, and so will all their kids, and all the people that will be born later on. People will always be your enemies. And Snake, your kids will hate the woman’s kids, and so will all the snake mob that will be born later on. You snake mob will always be the people’s enemies. They will hit your heads, and you will bite their feet.”

Matthew 12:39

Jesus said, “You mob that are alive today are really bad. You turned away from God. But now you want me to show you something powerful, right? No. I will not do that. The only powerful thing you will see is the same thing that God did to Jonah. He was one of God’s men.

Matthew 6:24

And Jesus told them another picture story. He said, “You can’t work for 2 bosses at the same time. If you try to do that, then you will only like one boss, and you will always work properly for him. But you will not like the other boss, and you will never work properly for him. You see, you can’t have God as your boss, and money as your boss, both at the same time.”

Luke 19:27

Then the boss talked about his enemies. He said, ‘Grab my enemies, you know, those people that hated me and didn’t want me to become their boss. Bring those people to me, and kill them, right here in front of me.’ ” (We have not yet translated 19:28—22:34. You can read most of those stories and messages in Mark 11:1—14:31. Some of them are about the time that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and the other things that happened at that time. And they say that he started to eat a special dinner, called the Passover, with his followers. While they were eating that dinner, Jesus talked to them. This next story here is some of what Jesus said at that time.)

John 15:19

The people that belong to this world don’t live God’s way. And they only love other people that belong to this world. But you are not like them, so they don’t love you. You see, I picked you out from the people of this world, and now you are different, so they hate you.

John 17:14

I told them your message, and they listened to me, and they believed me. They don’t belong here in this world, just like I don’t belong here. So the people that belong to this world hate them.

John 7:7

The people of this world don’t hate you. But they hate me. I keep on telling them that the things they do are really bad. That is the reason why they hate me.

Romans 5:10

It is like this. We were God’s enemies, then his son Jesus died for us, so now we are God’s friends. And that’s not all. Now that we are God’s friends, Jesus lives in us and saves us.

Romans 8:7

That bad part inside us fights against God, so if we do whatever it says, we don’t do the things that God wants us to do. If we are like that, we can never follow God’s laws. If we live like that, we can never make God happy.

1 Corinthians 1:20

So what does that tell us about the smart people in this world? And what about those people that reckon they properly know the Jewish law? And what about those people that can talk really good, so that they win arguments? None of them get to know God. They leave God out. They don’t think about him, and in the end God shows us that they are all stupid.

1 Corinthians 1:21

You see, God is properly wise. He knows that most people in this world want to be smart and think up their own ideas about God. But he blocks them, so they will never get to know him that way. Instead, God is happy to save everybody that believes his message. And we tell you that message, even though other people think we are stupid.

Galatians 1:10

I’m not trying to make people happy with me, I’m trying to make God happy with me. I work for Jesus Christ now, so it doesn’t matter to me if some people aren’t happy when I talk straight like this.

James 1:27

And God also wants you to look after people that need help. He wants you to look after people that haven’t got any money to buy food, like kids that haven’t got a mother or a father, or women whose husbands have died. If you do that sort of thing, God will be happy with you. But God will not be happy with you if you just look after yourself, like the people that belong to this world do.