Passage

James 4.3

Book: James · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members? 2. Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war; ye have not, because ye ask not.

3. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures.

Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God. 5. Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying? (James 4:1-5, ASV)

WEB

Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? 2. You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask.

3. You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.

You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”? (James 4:1-5, WEB)

KJV

From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? ^{fightings: or, brawlings} ^{lusts: or, pleasures} 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. ^{lusts: or, pleasures}

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. 5. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? ^{to envy: or, enviously?} ^{to envy: or, enviously} (James 4:1-5, KJV)

YLT

Whence [are] wars and fightings among you? not thence, out of your passions, that are as soldiers in your members? 2. ye desire, and ye have not; ye murder, and are zealous, and are not able to attain; ye fight and war, and ye have not, because of your not asking;

3. ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend [it].

Adulterers and adulteresses! have ye not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever, then, may counsel to be a friend of the world, an enemy of God he is set. 5. Do ye think that emptily the Writing saith, 'To envy earnestly desireth the spirit that did dwell in us,' (James 4:1-5, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: James (Iakōbos), identified by the great majority of interpreters as the brother of Jesus (Galatians 1:19; Mark 6:3), leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13; Acts 21:18). He introduces himself simply as "a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ" (James 1:1), never as a relative.
Audience: Jewish believers outside Palestine, addressed as "the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion" (James 1:1). The congregations meet in a synagōgē (James 2:2) and include both poor members and wealthy visitors.
Location: Jerusalem, from which James led the mother church.
Time period: Date disputed. An early date (c. AD 44-49) would make this the earliest surviving Christian writing; a later one places it before James's death, which Josephus dates to AD 62 (Antiquities 20.200). The letter shows no awareness of the Gentile-circumcision controversy settled in Acts 15, which many take as evidence for the early date.

Theological reading

"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures." The verse completes James's diagnosis of the quarrels in the congregation (4:1-2).

Two failures of prayer. Verse 2 ends, "ye have not, because ye ask not." Verse 3 adds the opposite failure: some do ask, and still do not receive. The problem is not that God is unwilling. Earlier James said God "giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not" (1:5).

"Amiss." The word is kakōs (Strong's G2560), "badly, wrongly." The wrong lies in the purpose clause: "that ye may spend it in your pleasures." "Spend" (G1159) is the ordinary word for spending or using up, and "pleasures" (G2237, hēdonē) is the word James used in 4:1 for the desires that "war in your members." The same appetites that start the fights also corrupt the prayers.

Prayer is not a tool for appetite. The verse does not teach that God refuses whatever we enjoy. It teaches that prayer aimed only at satisfying desire is asking God to serve the very thing that divides the church. The same letter commends the "prayer of faith" (5:15) and says that "the supplication of a righteous man availeth much" (5:16). First John makes the positive form of the rule: "if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us" (1 John 5:14).

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

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Quoted in

Concepts:

Prayer

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.