You desire but do not have, so you kill.(A) You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive,(B) because you ask with wrong motives,(C) that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

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

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Footnotes

  1. James 4:4 An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.

Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

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