James 4:3

You ask and you do not receive, because you ask badly, so that you may use it toward your own desires.

Catholic Public Domain Version

In The King James Version

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

In Context

2You desire, and you do not have. You envy and you kill, and you are unable to obtain. You argue and you fight, and you do not have, because you do not ask.

4You adulterers! Do you not know that the friendship of this world is hostile to God? Therefore, whoever has chosen to be a friend of this world has been made into an enemy of God.

Read all of James 4

Cross References

Job 27:8For what hope is there for the hypocrite, if he greedily plunders and God does not free his soul?

Proverbs 1:28then they will call to me, and I will not heed, they will arise in the morning, and not find me.

Proverbs 21:13Whoever blocks his ears to the outcry of the poor shall also cry out himself, and he will not be heeded.

Isaiah 1:15And so, when you extend your hands, I will avert my eyes from you. And when you multiply your prayers, I will not heed you. For your hands are full of blood.

Jeremiah 11:14Therefore, you should not choose to pray for this people, and you should not take up praise and petitioning on their behalf. For I will not heed them in the time of their outcry to me, in the time of their affliction.

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 →

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