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Read the Bible

New Life Version

James 4:9

Be sorry for your sins and cry because of them. Be sad and do not laugh. Let your joy be turned to sorrow.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Commandments;   Joy;   Repentance;   Worldliness;   Thompson Chain Reference - Earthly;   Joy;   Joy-Sorrow;   Laughter;   Sinners;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Joy;   Repentance;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Sorrow;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Ordinances of the Gospel;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - James, the General Epistle of;   Holman Bible Dictionary - James, the Letter;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Judas;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Cheerfulness ;   Laughter;   Mourning;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Heavy;   James, Epistle of;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
King James Version (1611)
Bee afflicted, and mourne, and weepe: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your ioy to heauinesse.
King James Version
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
English Standard Version
Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
New American Standard Bible
Be miserable, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom.
New Century Version
Be sad, cry, and weep! Change your laughter into crying and your joy into sadness.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
Berean Standard Bible
Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
Contemporary English Version
Be sad and sorry and weep. Stop laughing and start crying. Be gloomy instead of glad.
Complete Jewish Bible
Wail, mourn, sob! Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom!
Darby Translation
Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness.
Easy-to-Read Version
Be sad, be sorry, and cry! Change your laughter into crying. Change your joy into sadness.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Suffer afflictions, and sorrowe ye, and weepe: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your ioy into heauinesse.
George Lamsa Translation
Humble yourselves, and mourn; let your laughter be turned to weeping, and your joy to sorrow.
Good News Translation
Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!
Lexham English Bible
Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloominess.
Literal Translation
Be distressed, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy into shame.
Amplified Bible
Be miserable and grieve and weep [over your sin]. Let your [foolish] laughter be turned to mourning and your [reckless] joy to gloom.
American Standard Version
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Bible in Basic English
Be troubled, with sorrow and weeping; let your laughing be turned to sorrow and your joy to grief.
Hebrew Names Version
Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
International Standard Version
Be miserable, mourn, and cry. Let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom.Matthew 5:4;">[xr]
Etheridge Translation
Be humbled and sorrowful, and let your laughter be turned into grief, and your gladness into anxiety.
Murdock Translation
Humble yourselves, and mourn: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into grief.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Suffer afflictions, and mourne, and weepe: Let your laughter be turned to mournyng, and your ioy to heauinesse.
English Revised Version
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
World English Bible
Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into heaviness.
Weymouth's New Testament
Afflict yourselves and mourn and weep aloud; let your laughter be turned into grief, and your gladness into shame.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Be ye wretchis, and weile ye; youre leiyyng be turned in to weping, and ioye in to sorewe of herte.
Update Bible Version
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Webster's Bible Translation
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness.
New English Translation
Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter into mourning and your joy into despair.
New King James Version
Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
New Living Translation
Let there be tears for what you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy.
New Revised Standard
Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Be miserable and lament and weep, let, your laughter, into lamentation, be turned, and, your joy, into dejection;
Douay-Rheims Bible
Be afflicted and mourn and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into sorrow.
Revised Standard Version
Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to dejection.
Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Suffre affliccios: sorowe ye and wepe. Let youre laughter be turned to mornynge and youre ioye to hevynes.
Young's Literal Translation
be exceeding afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter to mourning be turned, and the joy to heaviness;
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Suffre affliccions: sorowe ye and wepe. Let youre laughter be turned to mornynge, and youre ioye to heuynes.
Mace New Testament (1729)
be afflicted, be mournful, and weep: let your mirth be converted to sadness, and your joy to vexation.
Simplified Cowboy Version
The way you've been living should break your heart. Them old ways you used to love ought to bring you pain.

Contextual Overview

1 What starts wars and fights among you? Is it not because you want many things and are fighting to have them? 2 You want something you do not have, so you kill. You want something but cannot get it, so you fight for it. You do not get things because you do not ask for them. 3 Or if you do ask, you do not receive because your reasons for asking are wrong. You want these things only to please yourselves. 4 You are as wives and husbands who are not faithful in marriage and do sex sins. Do you not know that to love the sinful things of the world and to be a friend to them is to be against God? Yes, I say it again, if you are a friend of the world, you are against God. 5 Do you think the Holy Writings mean nothing when they said, "The Holy Spirit Whom God has given to live in us has a strong desire for us to be faithful to Him"? 6 But He gives us more loving-favor. For the Holy Writings say, "God works against the proud but gives loving-favor to those who have no pride." 7 So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil and he will run away from you. 8 Come close to God and He will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners. Clean up your hearts, you who want to follow the sinful ways of the world and God at the same time. 9 Be sorry for your sins and cry because of them. Be sad and do not laugh. Let your joy be turned to sorrow. 10 Let yourself be brought low before the Lord. Then He will lift you up and help you.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

afflicted: James 5:1, James 5:2, Psalms 119:67, Psalms 119:71, Psalms 119:136, Psalms 126:5, Psalms 126:6, Ecclesiastes 7:2-5, Isaiah 22:12, Isaiah 22:13, Jeremiah 31:9, Jeremiah 31:13, Jeremiah 31:18-20, Ezekiel 7:16, Ezekiel 16:63, Zechariah 12:10-14, Matthew 5:4, Luke 6:21, 2 Corinthians 7:10, 2 Corinthians 7:11

let: Job 30:31, Proverbs 14:13, Ecclesiastes 2:2, Ecclesiastes 7:6, Lamentations 5:15, Luke 6:25, Luke 16:25, Revelation 18:7, Revelation 18:8

Reciprocal: Leviticus 23:27 - afflict Judges 2:4 - the people 2 Samuel 12:22 - I fasted 2 Chronicles 7:14 - humble Esther 5:9 - joyful Job 20:18 - and he shall Proverbs 19:10 - Delight Ecclesiastes 3:4 - time to weep Jeremiah 6:26 - make thee Jeremiah 50:4 - going Daniel 10:2 - I Daniel Joel 1:8 - Lament Joel 2:12 - with fasting Malachi 3:14 - and that Matthew 5:3 - the poor Luke 7:38 - weeping 2 Corinthians 7:7 - mourning 1 Peter 1:6 - ye are

Cross-References

Genesis 4:4
But Abel brought a gift of the first-born of his flocks and of the fat parts. The Lord showed favor to Abel and his gift.
Genesis 4:9
Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
Genesis 4:11
Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
Genesis 4:13
Then Cain said to the Lord, "I am being punished more than I can take!
Genesis 4:14
See, this day You have made me go away from the land. And I will be hidden from Your face. I will run away and move from place to place. And whoever finds me will kill me."
Genesis 37:32
They sent the coat of many colors to their father. And they said, "We found this. Is it your son's coat or not?"
Psalms 9:12
For He Who punishes for the blood of another remembers them. He does not forget the cry of those who suffer.
Proverbs 28:13
It will not go well for the man who hides his sins, but he who tells his sins and turns from them will be given loving-pity.
John 8:44
The devil is your father. You are from him. You want to do the sinful things your father, the devil, wants you to do. He has been a killer from the beginning. The devil has nothing to do with the truth. There is no truth in him. It is expected of the devil to lie, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep,.... Not in a bare external way; not by afflicting the body with fastings and scourgings, by renting of garments, and clothing with sackcloth, and putting ashes on the head, and other such outward methods of humiliation; but afflicting the soul is meant, an inward mourning and weeping over the plague of the heart, the impurity of nature, and the various sins of life; after a godly sort, and because contrary to a God of infinite love and grace; in an evangelical way, looking to Jesus, and being affected with the pardoning grace and love of God in Christ.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness; meaning their carnal joy, on account of their friendship with the world, and their enjoyment of the things of it, since they consumed them on their lusts, and which betrayed enmity to God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep - That is, evidently, on account of your sins. The sins to which the apostle refers are those which he had specified in the previous part of the chapter, and which he had spoken of as so evil in their nature, and so dangerous in their tendency. The word rendered “be afflicted” means, properly, to endure toil or hardship; then to endure affliction or distress; and here means, that they were to afflict themselves - that is, they were to feel distressed and sad on account of their transgressions. Compare Ezra 8:21. The other words in this clause are those which are expressive of deep grief or sorrow. The language here used shows that the apostle supposed that it was possible that those who had done wrong should voluntarily feel sorrow for it, and that, therefore, it was proper to call upon them to do it.

(All who feel true sorrow for sin, do so voluntarily; but it is not intended by this assertion to insinuate that repentance is not the work of the Spirit. He operates on men without destroying their freedom, or doing violence to their will: “in the day of his power they are willing.” Nor is it improper to call on men to do that for which they require the Spirit’s aid. That aid is not withheld in the hour of need; and everywhere the Bible commands sinners to believe and repent.)

Let your laughter be turned to mourning - It would seem that the persons referred to, instead of suitable sorrow and humiliation on account of sin, gave themselves to joyousness, mirth, and revelry. See a similar instance in Isaiah 22:12-13. It is often the case, that those for whom the deep sorrows of repentance would be peculiarly appropriate, give themselves to mirth and vanity. The apostle here says that such mirth did not become them. Sorrow, deep and unfeigned, was appropriate on account of their sins, and the sound of laughter and of revelry should be changed to notes of lamentation. To how many of the assemblies of the vain, the gay, and the dissipated, might the exhortation in this passage with propriety be now addressed!

Your joy to heaviness - The word here rendered heaviness occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means dejection, sorrow. It is not gloom, melancholy, or moroseness, but it is sorrow on account of sin. God has so made us that we should feel sorrow when we are conscious that we have done wrong, and it is appropriate that we should do so.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 9. Be afflicted, and mourn — Without true and deep repentance ye cannot expect the mercy of God.

Let your laughter be turned to mourning — It appears most evidently that many of those to whom St. James addressed this epistle had lived a very irregular and dissolute life. He had already spoken of their lust, and pleasures, and he had called them adulterers and adulteresses; and perhaps they were so in the grossest sense of the words. He speaks here of their laughter and their joy; and all the terms taken together show that a dissolute life is intended. What a strange view must he have of the nature of primitive Christianity, who can suppose that these words can possibly have been addressed to people professing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who were few in number, without wealth or consequence, and were persecuted and oppressed both by their brethren the Jews and by the Romans!


 
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