James Chapter 4 verse 9 Holy Bible
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
read chapter 4 in ASV
Be troubled, with sorrow and weeping; let your laughing be turned to sorrow and your joy to grief.
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Be wretched, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and [your] joy to heaviness.
read chapter 4 in DARBY
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
read chapter 4 in KJV
read chapter 4 in WBT
Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
read chapter 4 in WEB
be exceeding afflicted, and mourn, and weep, let your laughter to mourning be turned, and the joy to heaviness;
read chapter 4 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 9. - St. James's version of "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). Be afflicted. Ταλαιπωρήσατε: only here in the New Testament, occasionally in the LXX. Heaviness. Κατήφεια: another ἄπαξ λεγόμενον, apparently never found in the LXX. or in the apostolic Fathers; it is, however, used by Josephus and Philo. It is equivalent to "dejection," and "exactly describes the attitude of the publican, who would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, Luke 18:13 (Plumptre)."
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(9) Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep.--For wretchedness, sorrow, and tears are the three steps of the homeward way to peace and God. And in proof of real conversion there must be the outward lamentation, as well as the inward contrition. Grieve, therefore, with a "godly sorrow not to be repented of" (2Corinthians 7:10)--the remorseful anguish of a Peter, and not a Judas. Let the foolish laughter at sin, which was "as the crackling of thorns" before the avenging fire (Ecclesiastes 7:6), be turned to mourning; banish the joyous smile for the face cast down to heaviness, and so await the blessedness of those that mourn (Matt. v, 4), even the promised comfort of God.
