²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder,

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.

¹⁹ The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality,^(A) impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.^(B) I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.^(C)

⁷ The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God;^(A) it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. ⁸ Those who are in the realm of the flesh^(B) cannot please God.

¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.^(A)

²² Repent^(A) of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart.

¹⁰ “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind^(A) and you will devise an evil scheme.^(B)

⁴ Knowing their thoughts,^(A) Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?