James 4:1 - An Understandable Version (2005 edition)

¹ Where do conflicts and fights among you come from? Do they not come from your [desire for] pleasures which produce inner conflict?

More versions

King James Version (Oxford) 1769

¹ From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

Amplified Bible - Classic Edition

¹ WHAT LEADS to strife (discord and feuds) and how do conflicts (quarrels and fightings) originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members?

American Standard Version (1901)

¹ Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?

Common English Bible

¹ What is the source of conflict among you? What is the source of your disputes? Don’t they come from your cravings that are at war in your own lives?

Catholic Public Domain Version

¹ Where do wars and contentions among you come from? Is it not from this: from your own desires, which battle within your members?

James 4:1 Cross References

1 Peter 2:11

My dearly loved ones, I urge you, as a people who are foreigners and strangers [in this world], do not give in to sinful desires, which wage war against the soul.

Galatians 5:17

For what your body wants is in conflict with what the Holy Spirit wants [for you], and what the Holy Spirit wants conflicts with what your body wants, for these [two desires] are contrary to one another, so that you do not [always] do what you [really] want to.

Romans 7:23

but I see a different law [at work] in my body, waging [spiritual] warfare against the law in my mind. It brings me into captivity to the law of sin in my body.

Romans 8:7

This is because the one whose mind is [controlled] by the flesh is an enemy of God; for he is not obedient to God’s law, and in fact, cannot obey it.

James 1:14

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own evil desire.

1 Peter 1:14

As obedient children, do not pattern your lives after the evil desires you formerly had when you were ignorant,

Colossians 3:5

So, put to death [i.e., stop practicing] the desires of your physical bodies [such as] sexual immorality, [moral] impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is [in reality] idolatry.

2 Peter 3:3

First of all, you should understand that, in the final days, mockers with evil desires will come [to you] saying, mockingly,

James 4:3

[When] you do ask, you do not receive it, because you ask from wrong motives, [just] so you can satisfy your own pleasures.

2 Peter 2:18

[Although] their talk is big, what they say is worthless, and by [offering people] fleshly desires [i.e., sexual gratification], they lead people astray, who are barely escaping from the error of the world.

Titus 3:3

For we [Christians] were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various kinds of [evil] desires and [sinful] pleasures. [We used to] live in malice and envy, hating people and being hated by them.

Titus 3:9

But you should avoid foolish arguments, and [pointless] discussions about ancestors, and quarrels and disputes about [observance of] the Law of Moses, for they are unprofitable and useless.

Romans 7:5

For when we were in the flesh [i.e., before conversion], our sinful desires, aroused by [the restrictions of] the Law of Moses, worked in our bodies to produce activity that led to [spiritual] death.

Matthew 15:19

For evil thoughts, murder, extramarital affairs, sexual immorality, stealing, perjury, slander --- [all these] come from a person’s heart,

John 8:44

You belong to your father the devil, and you are [always] wanting to do what your father desires. He was a murderer from the [very] beginning [Note: This is probably a reference to Satan’s influence on Adam, Eve and Cain in the Garden of Eden] and does not stand for the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he only speaks what is part of his nature, because he is a liar and the father of [all] liars.

2 Timothy 2:23

But refuse [to participate in] foolish and stupid arguments, knowing that they produce quarreling.