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!

Drawing Close to God

What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.

You adulterers![a] Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.

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Footnotes

  1. 4:4 Greek You adulteresses!