James Chapter 4 verse 4 Holy Bible
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.
read chapter 4 in ASV
O you who are false to God, do you not see that the friends of this world are not God's friends? Every man desiring to be a friend of this world makes himself a hater of God.
read chapter 4 in BBE
Adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore is minded to be [the] friend of the world is constituted enemy of God.
read chapter 4 in DARBY
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.
read chapter 4 in KJV
read chapter 4 in WBT
You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
read chapter 4 in WEB
Adulterers and adulteresses! have ye not known that friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever, then, may counsel to be a friend of the world, an enemy of God he is set.
read chapter 4 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 4. - Ye adulterers and adulteresses. Omit μοιχοὶ καί, with א, A, B. The Vulgate has simply adulteri; the Old Latin (ff), fornicatores. Similarly the Syriae. Very strange is this sudden exclamation, "ye adulteresses!" and very difficult to explain. The same word (μοιχαλίς) is used as a feminine adjective by our Lord in the expression, "an evil and adulterous generation" (Matthew 12:39; Matthew 16:4; Mark 8:38); and in this possibly lies the explanation of St. James's use of the term. More probably, however, it should be accounted for as a reminiscence of Ezekiel 23:45, where we read of Samaria and Jerusalem under the titles of Aholah and Aholibah: "The righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands." It is remarkable too that in Malachi 3:5 the LXX. has μοιχαλίδες, although the Hebrew has the masculine, and men are evidently referred to. If, then, in the Old Testament the Jewish communities were personified as adulteresses, it is not unnatural for St. James to transfer the epithet to those Judaeo-Christian communities to which he was writing; and the word should probably be taken, just as in the Old Testament, of spiritual fornication, i.e. apostasy from God, shown in this case, not by actual idolatry, but by that "friendship of the world" which is "enmity with God," and by "covetousness which is idolatry." Φιλία. The word occurs here only in the New Testament. With the thought of this verse, compare our Lord's words in John 15:18, 19.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(4) Ye adulterers and adulteresses.--The phrase may seem to flow naturally after the former ones, but the Received text, from which our version was made, is wrong. It should be, ye adulteresses! as accusing those who have broken their marriage vow to God. The sense is familiar to us from many passages in the Old Testament, in which God speaks of Israel in a similar manner, e.g., Psalm 73:27; Isaiah 54:5; Jeremiah 2:2; Ezekiel 16 passim; Ezekiel 23:37-43; Hosea 2:2. Again in the New Testament: Matthew 12:39; Matthew 16:4; Mark 8:38; Revelation 2:20-22; Revelation 17:1; Revelation 17:5; Revelation 17:15, &c.; St. Paul's description of the church (2Corinthians 11:2), espoused "as a chaste virgin to Christ;" and comp. 2Peter 2:14, specially the margin. "God is the Lord and husband of every soul that is His;" and in her revolt from Him, and love for sin, her acts are those of an adulterous woman. . . .
