Warning Against Worldliness

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions[a] are (A)at war within you?[b] You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask (B)wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (C)You adulterous people![c] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? (D)Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

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Footnotes

  1. James 4:1 Greek pleasures; also verse 3
  2. James 4:1 Greek in your members
  3. James 4:4 Or You adulteresses!

Stop Fighting with Each Other

Where do those fights and quarrels among you come from? They come from your selfish desires that are at war in your bodies, don’t they? You want something but do not get it, so you commit murder. You covet something but cannot obtain it, so you quarrel and fight. You do not get things because you do not ask for them! You ask for something but do not get it because you ask for it for the wrong reason—for your own pleasure.

You adulterers! Don’t you know that friendship with the world means hostility with God? So whoever wants to be a friend of this world is an enemy of God.

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