Hedone denotes pleasures portrayed as desires that can govern conduct, hinder maturity, or fuel conflict.

The attested use concerns pleasures as desires or pursuits that exert a harmful influence: they wage war within people, consume wrongly sought goods, choke growth, enslave, and accompany daytime revelry.

1. Pleasures as governing or destructive desires · dominant

   The plural forms occur in contexts where such pleasures act upon human conduct: in James 4:1 the APB renders them as waging war in the members, and in James 4:3 as the aim on which requested things may be spent. In Luke 8:14 they are among what chokes hearers so that they do not reach maturity; Titus 3:3 places them alongside desires to which people were enslaved, while 2 Peter 2:13 presents the singular in a clause about counting daytime revelry as pleasure.

   James 4:1James 4:3Luke 8:14Titus 3:32 Peter 2:13

In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB uses “pleasures” in James 4:1, James 4:3, Luke 8:14, and Titus 3:3, and “pleasure” in 2 Peter 2:13. These renderings confirm the verses' broad presentation.