James Chapter 4 verse 3 Holy Bible
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend `it' in your pleasures.
read chapter 4 in ASV
You make your request but you do not get it, because your request has been wrongly made, desiring the thing only so that you may make use of it for your pleasure.
read chapter 4 in BBE
Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask evilly, that ye may consume [it] in your pleasures.
read chapter 4 in DARBY
Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
read chapter 4 in KJV
read chapter 4 in WBT
You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.
read chapter 4 in WEB
ye ask, and ye receive not, because evilly ye ask, that in your pleasures ye may spend `it'.
read chapter 4 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - An evident allusion to the sermon on the mount, Matthew 7:7, "Ask, and it shall be given to you... for every one that asketh receiveth." And yet St. James says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss;" for our Lord elsewhere limits his teaching, "All things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing," etc. (Matthew 21:22). Αἰτεῖτε... αἰτεῖσθε. The active and middle voices are similarly interchanged in 1 John 5:15, on which Dr. Westcott writes as follows: "The distinction between the middle and the active is not so sharply drawn; but generally the personal reference is suggested by the middle, while the request is left wholly undefined as to its destination by the active." That ye may consume it upon your lusts; render, with R.V., that ye may spend it in your pleasures; ἡδοναί, as in ver. 1.
