1 From Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who have been sanctified in God the father and kept safe for Jesus Christ, and called,
2 mercy to you, and peace, and may love be plentiful.
3 Beloved, when I was making every effort to write to you about our shared salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to strive on behalf of the faith once delivered to the saints.
4 For certain men have crept in surreptitiously, who have long been consigned to this judgment, who are ungodly, who are changing the grace of our God into licentiousness, and are denying God the only master and Lord of ours, Jesus Christ.
Former Judgment against False Teachers
5 And I want to remind you, although you know this, that after the Lord had rescued the people out of the land of Egypt on a first occasion, on the second occasion he destroyed those who did not believe.
6 And he has put the angels who did not keep their own dominion, but left their own dwelling place, under guard in perpetual chains in underworld gloom ready for the judgment of the great day.
7 Just as Sodom and Gomorrha and the towns around them committed fornication in a similar way to these, and went out after alien flesh, so they are set before us as an example, as they undergo the penalty of age-abiding fire.
Characteristics of False Teachers
8 Yet these also, dreaming, likewise defile the flesh and flout dominion and blaspheme those in glory.
9 And when Michael the archangel was contending with the devil and disputing about the body of Moses, he did not dare bring a charge of blasphemy, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you.”
10 But these speak blasphemously about all sorts of things which they do not know about, but on the other hand they instinctively understand things in the way unreasoning animals do, and they are wrecked by these things.
11 Woe to them, because they went the way of Cain, and abandoned themselves in the error of Balaam's remuneration, and perished by the refractoriness of Korah.
12 These are sunken rocks in your love feasts, who feast with you, fearlessly attending to themselves, who are clouds without water, carried off course by the winds, and they are withering autumnal trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted,
13 wild waves of the sea, foaming with their own shameful deeds, wandering stars, for whom the underworld gloom of darkness has been reserved throughout the Age.
Coming Judgment against False Teachers
14 And moreover Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied to these, and said, “Look, the Lord has come with tens of thousands of his holy ones,
15 to execute judgment against all, and to convict all of them who are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have said against him.”
16 These individuals are murmurers, dissatisfied with their fate, who walk according to their desires, while their mouth speaks bombastic words, showing partiality for the sake of gain.
Defending against False Teachers
17 But as for you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
18 how they told you that in the latter time there would be scoffers who would walk according to their own ungodly desires.
19 These are the ones who cause divisions, who are natural, who do not have any spirit.
20 But you, beloved, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying by holy spirit,
21 keep yourselves in the love of God, as you await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, culminating in age-abiding life.
22 And have compassion on one group, as you make a distinction,
23 and save another group with fear, snatching them out of the fire, while you show revulsion even at the garment polluted by the flesh.
24 Now to him who is able to keep them firm-footed and to set you without blemish with joy in the presence of his glory,
25 to the only and wise God our saviour be glory and majesty, might and authority, both now and throughout all the ages. Amen.