Jude 1:1–25

¹Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, but a brother of James, to the called ones who are loved in relationship with God [the] Father and preserved for Jesus Christ:

²May mercy and peace and love be increased to ​YOU.

³Beloved ones, though I was making every effort to write ​YOU​ about the salvation we hold in common, I found it necessary to write ​YOU​ to exhort ​YOU​ to put up a hard fight for the faith that was once for all time delivered to the holy ones.⁴My reason is that certain men have slipped in who have long ago been appointed by the Scriptures to this judgment, ungodly men, turning the undeserved kindness of our God into an excuse for loose conduct and proving false to our only Owner and Lord, Jesus Christ.

⁵I desire to remind ​YOU, despite ​YOUR​ knowing all things once for all time, that Jehovah, although he saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those not showing faith.⁶And the angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place he has reserved with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.⁷So too Sod′om and Go‧mor′rah and the cities about them, after they in the same manner as the foregoing ones had committed fornication excessively and gone out after flesh for unnatural use, are placed before [us] as a [warning] example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire.

⁸In like manner, notwithstanding, these men, too, indulging in dreams, are defiling the flesh and disregarding lordship and speaking abusively of glorious ones.⁹But when Mi′cha‧el the archangel had a difference with the Devil and was disputing about Moses’ body, he did not dare to bring a judgment against him in abusive terms, but said: “May Jehovah rebuke you.”¹⁰Yet these [men] are speaking abusively of all the things they really do not know; but all the things that they do understand naturally like the unreasoning animals, in these things they go on corrupting themselves.

¹¹Too bad for them, because they have gone in the path of Cain, and have rushed into the erroneous course of Ba′laam for reward, and have perished in the rebellious talk of Ko′rah!¹²These are the rocks hidden below water in ​YOUR​ love feasts while they feast with ​YOU, shepherds that feed themselves without fear; waterless clouds carried this way and that by winds; trees in late autumn, [but] fruitless, having died twice, having been uprooted;¹³wild waves of the sea that foam up their own causes for shame; stars with no set course, for which the blackness of darkness stands reserved forever.

¹⁴Yes, the seventh one [in line] from Adam, E′noch, prophesied also regarding them, when he said: “Look! Jehovah came with his holy myriads,¹⁵to execute judgment against all, and to convict all the ungodly concerning all their ungodly deeds that they did in an ungodly way, and concerning all the shocking things that ungodly sinners spoke against him.”

¹⁶These men are murmurers, complainers about their lot in life, proceeding according to their own desires, and their mouths speak swelling things, while they are admiring personalities for the sake of [their own] benefit.

¹⁷As for ​YOU, beloved ones, call to mind the sayings that have been previously spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,¹⁸how they used to say to ​YOU: “In the last time there will be ridiculers, proceeding according to their own desires for ungodly things.”¹⁹These are the ones that make separations, animalistic [men], not having spirituality.²⁰But ​YOU, beloved ones, by building up yourselves on ​YOUR​ most holy faith, and praying with holy spirit,²¹keep yourselves in God’s love, while ​YOU​ are waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ with everlasting life in view.²²Also, continue showing mercy to some that have doubts;²³save [them] by snatching [them] out of the fire. But continue showing mercy to others, doing so with fear, while ​YOU​ hate even the inner garment that has been stained by the flesh.

²⁴Now to the one who is able to guard ​YOU​ from stumbling and to set ​YOU​ unblemished in the sight of his glory with great joy,²⁵to [the] only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might and authority for all past eternity and now and into all eternity. Amen.