2 Ye lust and have not: ye kill and are full of envy, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war; ye have not because ye ask not.
Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
But if any one of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all freely and reproaches not, and it shall be given to him:
And *I* say to you, Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it will be opened. But of whom of you that is a father shall a son ask bread, and [the father] shall give him a stone? or also a fish, and instead of a fish shall give him a serpent? or if also he shall ask an egg, shall give him a scorpion? If therefore *ye*, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give [the] Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and many unwise and hurtful lusts, which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is [the] root of every evil; which some having aspired after, have wandered from the faith, and pierced themselves with many sorrows.
Go to now, ye rich, weep, howling over your miseries that [are] coming upon [you]. Your wealth is become rotten, and your garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is eaten away, and their canker shall be for a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have heaped up treasure in [the] last days. Behold, the wages of your labourers, who have harvested your fields, wrongfully kept back by you, cry, and the cries of those that have reaped are entered into the ears of [the] Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived luxuriously on the earth and indulged yourselves; ye have nourished your hearts [as] in a day of slaughter;
So are the paths of every one that is greedy of gain: it taketh away the life of its possessors.
There is one [alone] and without a second; also he hath neither son nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour, neither is his eye satisfied with riches, and [he saith not], For whom then am I labouring, and depriving my soul of good? This also is vanity and a grievous occupation.
And moreover, the wine is treacherous: he is a proud man, and keepeth not at rest, he enlargeth his desire as Sheol, and he is like death and cannot be satisfied; and he assembleth unto him all nations, and gathereth unto him all peoples.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on James 4
Commentary on James 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
In this chapter we are directed to consider,
Jam 4:1-10
The former chapter speaks of envying one another, as the great spring of strifes and contentions; this chapter speaks of a lust after worldly things, and a setting too great a value upon worldly pleasures and friendships, as that which carried their divisions to a shameful height.
Jam 4:11-17
In this part of the chapter,