For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist: James now goes on to explain the evil consequences of false wisdom. Those who make a false claim to wisdom are people with jealousy and selfish ambition, as described in verse 14. Their wisdom is non-heavenly, unspiritual, and ungodly, contributing nothing to the building up of the Christian community. In fact it is the contrary. In many languages it will be necessary to use verbal expressions in place of the nouns jealousy and selfish ambition: for example, “Whenever people are jealous and selfish” (Contemporary English Version), “Whenever people have hearts that desire greatly to have what others have and to be better than other people.”

These negative attitudes inevitably lead to disorder and every vile practice. The adjectival form of the noun disorder has appeared in 1.8, where James speaks of the double-minded person as “unstable,” and in 3.8, where the tongue is said to be a “restless” evil. In 1 Cor 14.33 Paul uses this word in the sense of “confusion,” setting it in contrast to “peace.” The word is also used in Luke 21.9 of the commotions, or “tumults,” of war. As used to describe the troubled situation in the community, it can mean “confusion” (King James Version, Goodspeed), “chaos” (Translator’s New Testament), and “disharmony” (Phillips, New Jerusalem Bible). Again it will be better in some languages to say, for example, “such people are always causing trouble” or “such people are always fighting [or, having disagreements] with others.” The word rendered vile generally means something “bad,” “base,” “worthless,” “foul” (New American Bible), “wickedness” (New Jerusalem Bible, New Revised Standard Version), or “cruel things” (Contemporary English Version). It is often used in the New Testament in contrast to the word “good” (John 5.29, “evil”; Rom 9.11, “bad”; 2 Cor 5.10, “evil”) and therefore is rendered as “evil” by Good News Translation, New International Version, Revised English Bible, and others. The word practice means things that are done, and therefore may also be rendered as “action” (Goodspeed) or “deed” (American Standard Version).

An alternative rendering for this verse may be:
• Whenever people are jealous and selfish, they are always causing trouble and doing every kind of evil.

Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .