James 4:3
You make your request but you do not get it, because your request has been wrongly made, desiring the thing only so that you may make use of it for your pleasure.
Bible in Basic English
In The King James Version
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
In Context
Cross References
Job 27:8For what is the hope of the sinner when he is cut off, when God takes back his soul?
Psalms 18:41\18:40\By you their backs are turned in flight, so that my haters are cut off.
Proverbs 1:28Then I will give no answer to their cries; searching for me early, they will not see me:
Proverbs 21:13He whose ears are stopped at the cry of the poor, will himself get no answer to his cry for help.
Isaiah 1:15And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood.
Jeremiah 11:14And as for you, make no prayers for this people, send up no cry or prayer for them: for I will not give ear to their cry in the time of their trouble.
Matthew Henry on James 4:2-11
Origin of War and Contention; Against Pride; Submission to God. ( a. d. 61.) 1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever… Read the whole commentary →