James 4:1-6

Submit Yourselves to God

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b] ?
6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”[c]

Cross References 11

  • 1. Titus 3:9
  • 2. S Romans 7:23
  • 3. Matthew 5:21,22; James 5:6; 1 John 3:15
  • 4. Psalms 18:41; S Matthew 7:7
  • 5. Psalms 66:18; 1 John 3:22; 1 John 5:14
  • 6. Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 3:20; Hosea 2:2-5; Hosea 3:1; Hosea 9:1
  • 7. S James 1:27
  • 8. Romans 8:7; 1 John 2:15
  • 9. John 15:19
  • 10. 1 Corinthians 6:19
  • 11. Psalms 138:6; Proverbs 3:34; S Matthew 23:12

Footnotes 3

  • [a]. An allusion to covenant unfaithfulness; see Hosea 3:1.
  • [b]. Or "that the spirit he caused to dwell in us envies intensely;" or "that the Spirit he caused to dwell in us longs jealously"
  • [c]. Prov. 3:34
Scripture quoted by permission.  Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.  NIV®.  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica.  All rights reserved worldwide.