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Today our text comes from James 4:8-17.\xa0
May God bless you as you hear his word.

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Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you\u2014who are you to judge your neighbor?

Now listen, you who say, \u201cToday or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.\u201d Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, \u201cIf it is the Lord\u2019s will, we will live and do this or that.\u201d As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn\u2019t do it, it is sin for them.

This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God: \xa0 \xa0

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping,
That awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep rest in his peace.
May Almighty God bless, preserve, and keep us, this day and forevermore.\xa0
Amen.