James 4:2-4
Living Bible
2 You want what you don’t have, so you kill to get it. You long for what others have, and can’t afford it, so you start a fight to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you do ask you don’t get it because your whole aim is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
4 You are like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband’s enemies. Don’t you realize that making friends with God’s enemies—the evil pleasures of this world—makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy the evil pleasure of the unsaved world, you cannot also be a friend of God.
Read full chapter
James 4:2-4
New International Version
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill.(A) 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,(B) because you ask with wrong motives,(C) that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous(D) people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world(E) means enmity against God?(F) Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.(G)
Footnotes
- James 4:4 An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.