<p>4:3 <em>You ask and do not receive because you ask with the wrong motivation, you want only what will give you pleasure</em>- Some ask and receive not, because in reality, they don&rsquo;t ask at all. They are playing around with the possible power of prayer for their own benefit. And Old Testament Israel fasted, but only to themselves, not to God (Zech. 7:5,6).</p><p>Despite all the commotion within their hearts and the ecclesia, and perhaps also in their strivings in their misdirected prayers, although they asked in prayer, in God's sight such words are not prayer: &quot;You ask not... you ask&quot;, because desiring is not praying. Alternatively, this may be looking back to 1:4,5 about asking for wisdom, as if to say 'You don't receive answers to your prayers for material things because you don't pray firstly for the wisdom from the word to be in your heart, which would have made your subsequent prayers powerful'. There is a link here with Mt. 7:7,8: &quot;Ask, and it shall be given you... for every one that asks receives&quot;. But &quot;You ask and receive <em>not</em>&quot;. The reason for such powerful prayer is given in the surrounding context in Mt. 7- if they were not hypocrites in criticizing their brethren, which 3:17 implies they were guilty of, and if they did to men as they would like God to do to them (Mt. 7:2,12). Not surprisingly therefore, the prayers of these brethren were not answered as Mt. 7 promised. There is probably also a reference to Jn. 15:7: &quot;If...my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you&quot;. &quot;Done unto you&quot; possibly implies physical blessing. Because the word was not in them, which is the whole theme of James, this promise was not fulfilled in them.</p><p>&ldquo;With the wrong motivation&rdquo; is better &quot;Amiss&quot;, and is from a word meaning to be sick or diseased, or generally 'evil'. Although it is not the same word translated &quot;sick&quot; in 5:14-16, there may be a connection with the idea there of them being struck with physical sickness because of their sin and being advised to pray for forgiveness and therefore a cure. Here in 4:3 James is saying that their prayers were for human things and therefore they and their prayers were sick. This would explain their 'killing' of their brethren by holding back wages from them (5:4), because they specifically wanted the cash in hand; see notes on 5:3 too.</p>