⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God,^(A) who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.^{(B) 6} But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt,^(C) because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

Submit Yourselves to God

4 What causes fights and quarrels^(A) among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle^(B) within you? ² You desire but do not have, so you kill.^(C) You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive,^(D) because you ask with wrong motives,^(E) that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

⁴ You adulterous^(F) people,^[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world^(G) means enmity against God?^(H) Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.^(I)

¹⁶ Therefore confess your sins^(A) to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.^(B) The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.^(C)