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James 4:1-4
Wycliffe Bible
James 4:1-4
Wycliffe Bible
4 Whereof be battles and chidings among you? Whether not of your covetings, that fight in your members?
2 Ye covet, and ye have not; ye slay, and ye have envy, and ye be not able to get [ye slay, and have envy, and ye be not able to get]. Ye chide, and make battle; and ye have not, for that ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and ye receive not; for that ye ask evil, as ye show openly in your covetings.
4 Adulterers, know not ye, that the friendship of this world is enemy to God? Therefore whoever will be the friend of this world, is made the enemy of God.
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James 4:1-4
New Matthew Bible
James 4:1-4
New Matthew Bible
Conflict and fighting come from sensuality and covetousness. The friendship of the world is enmity before God. An exhortation to flee slander and the vanity of this life.
4 Where do conflict and fighting come from among you? Do they not come from the sensuality and covetousness that reign in your members? 2 You lust, and have not. You envy, and have indignation, and cannot obtain. You fight and war, and have not because you ask not. 3 You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, even to consume it upon your pleasures.
4 You adulterers and women who break matrimony, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity toward God? Whoever will be a friend of the world, is made the enemy of God.
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James 4:1-4
1599 Geneva Bible
James 4:1-4
1599 Geneva Bible
4 1 He reckoneth up the mischiefs that proceed of the works of the flesh. 7 He exhorteth to humility, 8 and to purge the heart 3 from pride, 10 backbiting, 14 and the forgetfulness of our own infirmity.
1 From [a]whence are wars and contentions among you? are they not hence, even of your pleasures, that fight in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye envy, and desire immoderately, and cannot obtain: ye fight, and war, and get nothing, [b]because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye might lay the same on your pleasures.
4 [c]Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the amity of the world is the enmity of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world, maketh himself the enemy of God.
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- James 4:1 He goeth on forward in the same argument, condemning certain other causes of wars and contentions, to wit, unbridled pleasures and immoderate lusts, by their effects, for so much as the Lord doth worthily make them void, so that they bring nothing else to them in whom they are but incurable torments.
- James 4:2 He reprehendeth them by name, which are not ashamed to go about to make God the minister and helper of their lusts and pleasures, in asking things which either are of themselves unlawful, or being lawful, ask them to wicked purposes and uses.
- James 4:4 Another reason why such unbridled lusts and pleasures are utterly to be condemned, to wit, because that he that giveth himself to the world, divorceth himself from God, and breaketh the band of that holy and spiritual marriage.
James 4:1-4
Authorized (King James) Version
James 4:1-4
Authorized (King James) Version
4 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 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. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4 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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James 4:1-4
New International Version
James 4:1-4
New International Version
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)
Footnotes
- James 4:4 An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.
Wycliffe Bible (WYC)
2001 by Terence P. Noble
New Matthew Bible (NMB)
Copyright © 2016 by Ruth Magnusson (Davis). Includes emendations to February 2022. All rights reserved.
1599 Geneva Bible (GNV) 
Geneva Bible, 1599 Edition. Published by Tolle Lege Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in articles, reviews, and broadcasts.
Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)
KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.
New International Version (NIV) 
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.