Greeting
1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
1To those who are called,
2beloved in God the Father and
3kept for Jesus Christ:
2
May
4mercy,
5peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Judgment on False Teachers
3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our
6common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you
7to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
4
For
8certain people
9have crept in unnoticed
10who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert
11the grace of our God into sensuality and
12deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5
Now I want
13to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that
14Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt,
15afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
6
And
16the 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--
7
just as
17Sodom and Gomorrah and
18the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and
19pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
8
Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and
20blaspheme the glorious ones.
9
But when
21the archangel
22Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing
23about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said,
24"The Lord rebuke you."
10
25But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
11
Woe to them! For they walked in
26the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain
27to Balaam's error and
28perished in Korah's rebellion.
12
These are hidden reefs
29 at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear,
30shepherds feeding themselves;
31waterless clouds,
32swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead,
33uprooted;
13
34wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of
35their own shame;
36wandering stars,
37for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
14
It was also about these that Enoch,
38the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying,
39"Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones,
15
40to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have
41committed in such an ungodly way, and of all
42the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
16
These are grumblers, malcontents,
43following their own sinful desires;
44they are loud-mouthed boasters,
45showing favoritism to gain advantage.