Copyright (c) Timothy E. Clontz 1999 All rights reserved.

The Letter of Jude

1
  1 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: 2 may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
  3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain persons have crept in secretly, those who were long ago marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
  5 Now I desire to remind you, though you were once for all fully informed, that the Lord who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, he has kept in eternal chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in strange flesh, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
  8 Yet in the same way these men in their dreamings defile the flesh, reject authority, and revile the glorious ones. 9 But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a reviling judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" 10 But these men revile whatever they do not understand; and the things that they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals do, by these things they are destroyed. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for the sake of gain they have rushed headlong into the Balaam's error, and perished in Korah's rebellion. 12 These are the men who are blemishes in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
  14 It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." 16 These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for their own advantage.
  17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18 they said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly lusts." 19 These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; 21 keep yourselves in the love of God; wait anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on some, who doubt; 23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.
  24 Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 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.