James 4:1-17

James continues to address the holy-people who are descendants of the 12 tribes of Israel/Jacob (James 1:1).

James 4:1-10:

^4:1From-where (comes) wars and from-where (comes) fights among you? (They come) from-here: out-from your delights, the (delights) serving-as-soldiers in your limbs, don’t they? – (yes.) ^.2You intensely-yearn and you do not have – you murder; and you are jealous and you are not able to attain – you fight and you war. You do not have because-of you not asking-for-yourselves; ^.3you ask and you do not receive for-this-reason-that you badly ask-for-yourselves in order that you may spend in your delights.

^.4Adulteresses!, you knew² that the friendship of the world is enmity of God, don’t you? – (yes.) Therefore who if-ever may be deliberately-determined to be a friend of the world he is constituted an enemy of God. ^.5Or do you consider that the writing emptily says the spirit which He caused-to-dwell-down in us earnestly-longs towards envy? – ^.6but He gives greater grace, on-which-account it says, “God arranges-Himself-against arrogant-people, but He gives grace to humble-people.”

^.7Therefore you must be subject to God – but you must stand-against the devil and he will cause-himself-to-flee away-from you. ^.8You must come-near to God and He will come-near to you. You must clean (your) hands, sinners, and you must purify (your) hearts, two-souled-people; ^.9you must distress and mourn and cry; your laughter must be turned into mourning and the joy into dejection. ^.10You must be humbled before (the) Lord and He will heighten you.

From what manner of action (how, from what source or place) comes the state of wars and from where comes fights (the individual battles, combats) among you? They come from here (from this cause, origin, source):

• out-from your delights (feelings of relish of taste, pleasurable sensations, sweetnesses),
  • emphatically and specifically the delights serving as soldiers (being in service soldiering during battle/war) in/among your limbs (the members of your physical, fleshy body),

…don’t they? The Greek construction of this question must receive an affirmative answer: "yes, they do.” James explains:

• You intensely-yearn (you fix or attach strong-desire upon certain objects other-than God and the things of God, you lust in the bad sense)
• and you do not have (you do not hold what you intensely yearn for),
  • – you murder (wrongfully kill – to try to get what you intensely yearn for);
• and in progression you are jealous (zealous in the bad sense, you have a boiling or vehement passion)
• and you are not able to attain (you are not capable of hitting the mark that you intend to reach, you do not have the able-power or ability to achieve your goal)
  • – you fight and you war (to try to attain what you are jealous about).

You do not have on account of the fact that you are not asking for yourselves (as an inferior asks a superior for something to be given to him) in the correct manner from God. But instead, this is what you currently do:

• you actively ask for things
• and you do not receive (take what you ask for)

…why not?...

• on account of this reason that you badly ask for yourselves (in a bad way or manner, contrary to God’s intention, against what God would want you to have or do) – it is described as ‘badly’ because you ask for something to be given to you – why? –   
  • for the purpose and result that you may spend in your delights (you would be at expense, use your resources, expend and exhaust yourselves within the sphere of action of your feelings of relish of taste, your pleasurable sensations, your sweetnesses).

Adulteresses (in the figurative sense regarding your behavior: you who voluntarily debase yourselves with/by someone or something else that is contaminating or defiling from God's viewpoint, leaving the only true God as though He were your husband and you are going from Him and being with some other so-called god)!,

• you knew and still know (you see to the end of perceiving and knowing with your minds) that the friendship of the world (the state or quality of having the brotherly or friendly kind of love for/towards the present world, the ordered arrangement that God created, but in this context figuratively referring to the present condition of it still being under the influence of satan, the devil)
  • is enmity of God (opposition, hostility for/towards God),

…don’t you? The Greek construction of this question must receive an affirmative answer: "yes.”

Following-on logically, the person who, if it should happen at any time, would purposefully-will to be a friend of the world – he is constituted (caused to be placed, made to stand-down in the level or position of being) an enemy of God (one who opposes God, who has active ill-will and exhibits enmity and hostility towards Him).

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