AUV(i)
1 Where do conflicts and fights among you come from? Do they not come from your [desire for] pleasures which produces inner conflict?
2 You people desire something and yet do not have it, [so] you murder [to get it]. You are envious [of what someone has] and [yet] are not able to obtain it, [so] you fight and quarrel [over it]. You do not have [what you want] because you do not ask [God for it].
3 [When] you do ask, you do not receive it, because you ask from wrong motives, [just] so you can satisfy your own pleasures.
4 You people who have become unfaithful to God, do you not know that being [intimate] friends with the world [of sin] means hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever determines to be an [intimate] friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
5 Or, do you think that the Scripture says [this] for nothing? [Note: No specific passage is here cited, but the idea occurs in several Old Testament passages]. “The Holy Spirit, whom God has made to live in us, longs jealously [for us to be faithful to God].”
6 But He gives [us] more unearned favor [i.e., to overcome the world]. Therefore, the Scripture says [Prov. 3:34], “God opposes proud people, but gives unearned favor to those who are humble.”
7 So, you should submit yourselves to God, but oppose the devil, and he will flee from you.