James 4:4

Like a woman who is unfaithful to her husband, you are being unfaithful to God and not obeying him any more [MET]. Those who are behaving as evil people do [MTY] (OR, Those who love the evil pleasures of this world) are hostile toward God. Perhaps you do not realize that [RHQ]. So those who decide to act as evil people do [MTY] become enemies of God.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

In Context

3And even when you do ask him, he does not give you what you ask for because you are asking for the wrong reason. You are asking for things in order that you may use them just to ◄enjoy yourselves/make yourselves happy►.

5◄Surely you remember that God told us in the Scriptures that he eagerly desires that his Spirit, who lives in us, will help us to love God only!/Do you think that it is for no reason that God told us in the Scriptures that he strongly desires that his Spirit, who lives in us, will help us to love God only?► [RHQ] God has a reason for desiring that.

Read all of James 4

Cross References

Genesis 3:15And I will cause you and the woman to act in a hostile way toward each other, and I will cause your brood and her descendants to act hostilely toward each other. You will strike at the heel of one descendant of hers, but he will strike your head.”

Psalms 50:18Every time that you see a thief, you become his friend, and you spend much time with those who commit adultery.

Isaiah 57:3Yahweh says, “But you who practice sorcery, come here! You who worship idols [MET], listen to me!

Jeremiah 9:2I wish that I could leave my people and forget them, and go and live in a shack/shelter in the desert, because they have not remained faithful [MET] to Yahweh; they are a mob of people who deceive others.

Matthew 6:24“No one is able to serve two different bosses at the same time. If he tried to do that, he would dislike one of them and love the other one, or he would be loyal to one of them and despise the other one [DOU]. Similarly, you cannot devote your life to worshipping God and worshipping money and material goods at the same time.”

Matthew 16:4You evil people have seen me perform miracles but you do not faithfully worship God [MET]. You want to see me perform a miracle that would prove that God has sent me. But God will enable you to see only one miracle. It will be like what happened [MET] to Jonah, the prophet, who was inside a huge fish for three days and then came out of it to live again.” Then Jesus left them and sailed away, along with us disciples.

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 →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study James 4:4