James 4:9

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.

Parallel Translations

Easy-to-Read Version
Be sad, be sorry, and cry! Change your laughter into crying. Change your joy into sadness.

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.

Hebrew Names Version
Lament, 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.

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.

English Standard Version
Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

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.

English Revised Version
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

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.

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.

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.

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.

King James Version (1611)
Bee afflicted, and mourne, and weepe: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your ioy to heauinesse.

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

New Revised Standard
Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.

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.

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.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Suffer afflictions, and mourne, and weepe: Let your laughter be turned to mournyng, and your ioy to heauinesse.

Good News Translation
Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!

Christian Standard Bible®
Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

King James Version
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

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.

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.

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.

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.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

Contextual Overview

¹ What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don't they come from the evil desires at war within you? ² You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can't get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don't have what you want because you don't ask God for it. ³ And even when you ask, you don't get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. ⁴ You adulterers! Don't you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God. ⁵ Do you think the Scriptures have no meaning? They say that God is passionate that the spirit he has placed within us should be faithful to him. ⁶ And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." ⁷ So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.

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
Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift,

Genesis 4:9
Afterward the Lord asked Cain, "Where is your brother? Where is Abel?" "I don't know," Cain responded. "Am I my brother's guardian?"

Genesis 4:11
Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother's blood.

Genesis 4:13
Cain replied to the Lord , "My punishment is too great for me to bear!

Genesis 4:14
You have banished me from the land and from your presence; you have made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me!"

Genesis 37:32
They sent the beautiful robe to their father with this message: "Look at what we found. Doesn't this robe belong to your son?"

Psalms 9:12
For he who avenges murder cares for the helpless. He does not ignore the cries of those who suffer.

Proverbs 28:13
People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.

John 8:44
For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; 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!