Jude 1:1-25
1 Judah, servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to the called who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
2 mercy and peace and love be yours in abundance.
3 Dear friends, while I was doing my utmost to write to you about our common salvation, I have found it necessary to write you an exhortation to do battle for the faith once delivered to God’s people.
4 For there have slipped in some men forewritten of old for this doom, impious men who shift the grace of our God into immorality and repudiate our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5 But I would remind you, though you know the whole once for all, that after the Lord had saved a people out of the land of Egypt he in the second instance destroyed those who did not believe,
6 and angels who did not keep their prerogative but left their domicile he has kept under darkness by everlasting fetters for the judgment of the Great Day,
7 as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having run into debauchery and gone after another flesh in like manner with these, are on exhibition as an example, undergoing the penalty of eternal fire.
8 However, in the same fashion these too, obsessed by dreams, pollute flesh, and set lordship aside, and vilify glories.
9 But the archangel Michael, when he was arguing with the Devil over the body of Moses, did not dare to prefer a defamation-charge, but said “The Lord rebuke you!”
10 But these vilify whatever they do not know; and what they do by nature make out like the brutes, in this they find their undoing.
11 Woe to them, because they have traveled Cain’s road, and streamed over Balaam’s devious course for pay, and perished in Korah’s sedition.
12 These are those “who in your love-feasts fearlessly feast with you, and are your sunken rocks,” shepherds that feed themselves, waterless clouds carried along by winds, twice-dead fruitless autumn trees uprooted,
13 wild sea waves frothing up their own shames, wandering stars for which the blackness of darkness is forever kept.
14 And it was to these too that Enoch, seventh from Adam, prophesied “Here the Lord has come with his holy millions
15 to do justice upon all and to call all the impious to account regarding all their impieties that they have committed, and regarding all the hard words that impious sinners have spoken against him.”
16 These are faultfinding grumblers, going by their own desires, with mouths that pour out extravagant talk, deferring to persons for profit’s sake.
17 But as for you, dear friends, remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
18 how they told you “In the end of time there will be mockers going by their own desires for impieties.”
19 These are the discriminators, soul-men who have no spirit.
20 But do you, dear friends, building yourselves up upon your most holy faith, praying in Holy Spirit,
21 * keep yourselves in the love of God, watching for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ which brings us to eternal life.
22 ** And convince some by proofs when they doubt,
23 and save some by snatching them out of fire, and pity some with fear, hating the very garment spotted by the flesh.
24 And to him who can guard you safe from stumbling and set you before his glory blameless and exultant,
25 the only God, our Savior, belong glory, majesty, might, and dominion, before all time and now and to all eternity; amen!
Footnotes
^ 21 The words which brings us are not in the Greek
^ 22 Or when they dispute
^ 22-23 Susp.
