1Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
2May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.
3Beloved, though I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you appealing that you contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
4For certain people have slipped in unnoticed, those long ago marked out beforehand for this condemnation—ungodly ones who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5Now I want to remind you—though you know all things once for all—that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
6And the angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness for the judgment of the great day—
7just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which in the same manner as these indulged in sexual immorality and went after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, undergoing the penalty of eternal fire.
8Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme glorious ones.
9But Michael the archangel, when he was disputing with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring against him a blasphemous judgment, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you.”
10But these people blaspheme whatever they do not understand, and whatever they do know by instinct, like the unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.
11Woe to them! For they went the way of Cain, and abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam for wages, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
12These are the hidden reefs at your love feasts, feasting together without fear, shepherding only themselves; waterless clouds carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;
13wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shameful deeds; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of darkness has been kept forever.
14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, also prophesied about these people, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads,
15to execute judgment against all and to convict all the ungodly concerning all their works of ungodliness that they have committed in ungodliness, and concerning all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”
16These are grumblers, malcontents, going along after their own desires; their mouth speaks arrogant things, showing partiality for the sake of advantage.
17But you, beloved, remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
18how they told you, “In the last time there will be mockers, going along after their own ungodly desires.”
19These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, not having the Spirit.
20But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
21keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
22And have mercy on some, who are wavering;
23save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on others have mercy with fear, hating even the tunic stained by the flesh.
24Now to him who is able to guard you from stumbling and to present you blameless before his glory with great joy,
25to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and unto all the ages. Amen.
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