Bible Strands
James 4:9
Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — James addresses scattered Jewish believers, calling them to repentance between the commands to draw near to God (v.8) and to humble themselves before the Lord (v.10).
The words — ταλαιπωρήσατε (talaipōrēsate) carries the weight of wretchedness or misery, not mere sadness; γέλως (gelōs) names the specific thing being inverted — laughter as a settled state, not a passing expression.
The thread — Luke 6:25 mirrors the same reversal ("Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep"), and 2 Corinthians 7:10 distinguishes the godly sorrow this verse demands from the worldly kind that brings death.
Why it lands — It asks the reader to stop performing contentment and face the actual condition of their life before God. The three imperatives leave no room for a half-measure: grieve, mourn, weep — each one deeper than the last.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
Cross-references
- Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
- 2 Corinthians 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
- Luke 6:25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
- Proverbs 14:13 Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in sorrow.
- James 5:1 Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you.
- Psalms 119:67 Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I keep Your word.
- Ecclesiastes 7:2 It is better to enter a house of mourning than a house of feasting, since death is the end of every man, and the living should take this to heart.
- Jeremiah 31:18 I have surely heard Ephraim’s moaning: ‘You disciplined me severely, like an untrained calf. Restore me, that I may return, for You are the LORD my God.
- Ezekiel 16:63 so that when I make atonement for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your disgrace, declares the Lord GOD.”
- Revelation 18:7 As much as she has glorified herself and lived in luxury, give her the same measure of torment and grief. In her heart she says, ‘I sit as queen; I am not a widow and will never see grief.’