“You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
— WEB
James 4:4
Cited in 2 topics on this site.
Translations sourced from the public-domain WEB, KJV, and ASV. See all sources.
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
— KJV
“Ye adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.”
— ASV
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Commentary
The oldest manuscripts omit "adulterers and," and read simply, "Ye adulteresses." God is the rightful husband; the men of the world are regarded collectively as one adulteress, and individually as adulteresses. the world--in so far as the men of it and their motives and acts are aliens to God, for example, its selfish "lusts" (Jam 4:3), and covetous and ambitious "wars and fightings" (Jam 4:1). enmity--not merely "inimical"; a state of enmity, and that enmity itself. Compare Jo1 2:15, "love . . . the world . . . the love of the Father." whosoever . . . will be--The Greek is emphatic, "shall be resolved to be." Whether he succeed or not, if his wish be to be the friend of the world, he renders himself, becomes (so the Greek for "is") by the very fact, "the enemy of God." Contrast "Abraham the friend of God."
— Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary (public domain)
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