Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for
Jesus Christ:
May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our
common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to
contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the
saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago
were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert
the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and
Lord, Jesus Christ.
Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that
Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward
destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not
stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper
dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until
the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the
surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality
and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a
punishment of eternal fire.
Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams,
defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious
ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil,
was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to
pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and
they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals,
understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way
of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's
error and perished in Korah's rebellion. These are hidden reefs at
your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds
feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds;
fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of
the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars,
for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam,
prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of
his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the
ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed
in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly
sinners have spoken against him.” These are grumblers, malcontents,
following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters,
showing favoritism to gain advantage.
But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles
of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there
will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is
these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith
and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God,
waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to
eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by
snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear,
hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present
you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to
the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory,
majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and
forever. Amen.
