Jude 1

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, to those who are called, loved by God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.

Mercy, peace and love be yours in full measure.

Dear friends, though I was very keen to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to fight for the faith that was once for all handed down to God's people.

Because certain people have crept in among you — the kind whose condemnation was written about long ago. Ungodly types, who twist the grace of our God into a licence for filth and deny Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

I want to remind you — though you already know all this — that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who didn't believe.

And the angels who didn't keep to their own place but abandoned their proper home — he's kept them in darkness, in everlasting chains, for the judgement of the great day.

Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns around them are an example too. They gave themselves over to sexual immorality and perversion, and they're paying the penalty of eternal fire.

It's the same with these dreamers. They pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and slander celestial beings.

But even the archangel Michael, when he argued with the devil over the body of Moses, didn't dare bring a slanderous charge against him. He just said, “The Lord rebuke you.”

But these people slander whatever they don't understand, and the very things they do grasp — by instinct, like unreasoning animals — are what destroy them.

Woe to them. They've taken the way of Cain. They've rushed for profit into Balaam's error. They've been destroyed in Korah's rebellion.

These are the ones who spoil your love feasts, feasting with you without a shred of shame — shepherds who feed only themselves. They're clouds without rain, blown along by the wind. Autumn trees, without fruit, uprooted — dead twice over.

They're wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame. Wandering stars, for whom the blackest darkness has been kept forever.

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones

to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly things they've done, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

These people are grumblers and faultfinders. They follow their own evil desires. They boast about themselves and flatter others to get what they want.

But you, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ told you beforehand.

They said to you, “In the last times there'll be scoffers who follow their own ungodly desires.”

These are the people who divide you — who follow mere instinct and don't have the Spirit.

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith, and pray in the Holy Spirit.

Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

Be merciful to those who doubt.

Snatch others from the fire and save them. And to others show mercy, but with fear — hating even the clothing stained by corrupt flesh.

To the one who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy —

to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now and forever. Amen.