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Draw Near to God

[a]What is the source of quarrels and (A)conflicts among you? [b]Is not the source your pleasures that wage (B)war in your members? You lust and do not have, so you (C)murder. You are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and (D)do not receive, because you ask [c]with wrong motives, so that you may spend it [d]on your pleasures. You (E)adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with (F)the world is (G)hostility toward God? (H)Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world sets himself as an enemy of God.

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Footnotes

  1. James 4:1 Lit From where wars and from where fightings
  2. James 4:1 Lit Are they not from here, from your
  3. James 4:3 Lit wickedly
  4. James 4:3 Lit in

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!