Chapter 1
1: Judas, a servant of Jesus
Christ, and brother of James, to them that are called, beloved
in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:
2: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
3: Beloved, being very eager to write to you of our
common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you
to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the
saints.
4: For admission has been secretly gained by some who
long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly persons
who pervert 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 he who saved a people out of the land
of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
6: And the angels that did not keep their own position
but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal
chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day;
7: just as Sodom and Gomor'rah and the surrounding
cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural
lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal
fire.
8: Yet in like manner these men in their dreamings defile
the flesh, reject authority, and revile the glorious ones.
9: But when the archangel Michael, contending with the
devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to
pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, "The Lord
rebuke you."
10: But these men revile whatever they do not understand,
and by those things that they know by instinct as irrational
animals do, they are destroyed.
11: Woe to them! For they walk in the way of Cain, and
abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error, and
perish in Korah's rebellion.
12: These are blemishes on your love feasts, as they
boldly carouse together, looking after themselves; waterless
clouds, carried along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn,
twice dead, uprooted;
13: wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their
own shame; wandering stars for whom the nether gloom of darkness
has been reserved for ever.
14: It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh
generation from Adam prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord
came with his holy myriads,
15: to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the
ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have
committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things
which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
16: These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own
passions, loud-mouthed boasters, flattering people to gain
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 passions."
19: It is these who set up divisions, worldly people,
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 for the
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22: And convince some, who doubt;
23: save some, by snatching them out of the fire; on some
have mercy with fear, hating even the garment spotted 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 rejoicing,
25: to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our
Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all
time and now and for ever. Amen. |