108 Paul Danove Everything for which you [with affect] pray and ask, believe that you received [it], and it will be yours. Jas 1:5-6 presents two contextually related occurrences of the verb. In v. 5 the conditional clause specifies the antecedent motivation for the request; the context identifies no unfulfilled constraints; and the verb form is active. Once the character gives the assurance that God will give wisdom, the subsequent command (v. 6) to ask “by faith” specifies not a new unfulfilled constraint on asking but a fulfilled constraint in all successful requests. Thus the verb form is active. Εἰ δέ τις ὑμῶν λείπεται σοφίας, αἰτείτω παρὰ τοῦ διδόντος θεοῦ πᾶσιν ἁπλῶς καὶ μὴ ὀνειδίζοντος καὶ δοθήσεται αὐτῷ. αἰτείτω δὲ ἐν πίστει μηδὲν διακρινόμενος (Jas 1:5-6) If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask [it] of God, who gives to all gene- rously and not reproaching, and it will be given to him. But let him ask by faith, doubting nothing. Matt 20:20-22 presents two contextually related occurrences. In v. 20 the context identifies no constraints on the mother’s action of asking, and the verb form is active. In v. 22 Jesus first asserts that James and John do not know, which establishes a contrast between what Jesus knows and what they do not know, and then reformulates the mother’s request, mak- ing James and John the referents of the Agent. When Jesus says, “You do not know what you are asking”, he does not mean that they do not recognize these positions as ones of power and authority. Instead, he is putting them on notice that the action of asking for these positions has the unfulfilled constraint of being able to drink his cup. This occurrence reflects Jesus’ perspective, and the verb form is middle. Τότε προσῆλθεν αὐτῷ ἡ μήτηρ τῶν υἱῶν Ζεβεδαίου μετὰ τῶν υἱῶν αὐτῆς προσκυνοῦσα καὶ αἰτοῦσά τι απ’ αὐτοῦ…Οὐκ οἴδατε τί αἰτεῖσθε. δύνασθε πιεῖν τὸ ποτήριον ὃ ἐγὼ μέλλω πίνειν; (Matt 20:20, 22) Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, kneeling and asking something from him…. “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” 1 John 5:14-15 presents three occurrences of the verb, and the charac- ter narrator is a constituent of the Agent, indicating a single perspective for recognizing constraints. In v. 14 the constraint is to ask according to God’s will, and the character and Agent recognize this constraint. However, since the constraint appears in the protasis of a general condi-