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!

Subject Yourselves to God

From where are conflicts and from where are quarrels among you? Is it not from this, from your pleasures that wage war among your members? You desire and do not have; you murder and are filled with envy, and are not able to obtain; you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, in order that you may spend it on your pleasures.

Adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

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