James 4:3

you ask, and you do not receive, because you ask badly, that you may spend [it] in your pleasures.

Literal Standard 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 do not have, [so] you murder; and you are zealous, and are not able to attain, [so] you fight and war; and you do not have, because of your not asking;

4Adulterers and adulteresses! Have you not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever, then, may intend to be a friend of the world, he is designated [as] an enemy of God.

Read all of James 4

Cross References

Job 27:8For what [is] the hope of the profane, || When He cuts off? When God casts off his soul?

Psalms 18:41They cry, and there is no savior, || On YHWH, and He does not answer them.

Proverbs 1:28Then they call me, and I do not answer, || They seek me earnestly, and do not find me.

Proverbs 21:13Whoever is shutting his ear from the cry of the poor, || He also cries, and is not answered.

Isaiah 1:15And in your spreading forth your hands, I hide My eyes from you, || Also when you increase prayer, I do not hear, || Your hands have been full of blood.

Jeremiah 11:14And you, you do not pray for this people, || Nor do you lift up cry and prayer for them, || For I do not listen in the time of their calling to Me for their distress.

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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