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You ask and receive not because you ask amiss, even to consume it upon your pleasures.

You adulterers and women who break matrimony, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity toward God? Whoever will be a friend of the world, is made the enemy of God. Or do you think that the scripture says in vain, the Spirit that dwells in you resists envy,

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When you ask, you do not receive,(A) because you ask with wrong motives,(B) that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

You adulterous(C) people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world(D) means enmity against God?(E) Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.(F) Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]?(G)

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Footnotes

  1. James 4:4 An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.
  2. James 4:5 Or that the spirit he caused to dwell in us envies intensely; or that the Spirit he caused to dwell in us longs jealously