Jude

¹ From: Judah, a worker enslaved to Jesus Christ, and brother of Jacob

To: the called who have been watched over by Jesus Christ and loved in connection with Father God

² May loving faithfulness, peace, and love be increased for you.

³ Loved ones, while hurrying to write to you about our shared liberation, I had a need to write to you encouraging you to contend for the faithfulness given over permanently to those who have been dedicated for a purpose. ⁴ That’s because some people have crept in—contemptuous people who were announced for this verdict long ago—changing the generosity of our God into lack of restraint and disregard our only master and lord, Jesus Christ.

⁵ I’m intending to remind you (since you’ve learned these things once already) that Jesus, after rescuing the people from the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who were not faithful. ⁶ Also, he has guarded messengers, those who did not guard their own region but instead deserted their own home, in permanent imprisonment under darkness for the assessment on the big Day. ⁷ They are like Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns that were like them—similarly going out and sexually exploiting people and leaving to go back to another family—which suffer a sentence of agelong fire and are presented as an example.

⁸ Nevertheless, in the same way, these people who dream not only stain the body, but they also disregard authority, and they also speak disrespectfully against those with imposing reputations. ⁹ However, Michael the lead messenger, when he disputed with the False Accuser about Moses’ body and discussed it, didn’t bring himself to impose a disrespectful assessment, but instead, he said, “The Lord can evaluate you!” ¹⁰ But these people not only speak disrespectfully against anything they do not understand, but they also innately understand everything as if they were irrational animals, and they are corrupted by these things. ¹¹ They’d better watch out because they traveled the path of Cain, dealt out the pay for Balaam to go the wrong way, and destroyed themselves in Korah’s controversy. ¹² These are people who are hazards at your love feasts, feasting together disrespectfully, tending to themselves. They are waterless clouds carried around by the winds, trees in the autumn without fruit—twice dead and uprooted, ¹³ wild sea waves foaming disgraceful actions over themselves, and stars wandering off course for whom total darkness has been reserved for the Age.

¹⁴ Enoch, who was from the seventh generation from Adam, also prophesied about them, saying, “Look, the LORD came with innumerable of the people who were dedicated for a purpose ¹⁵ to make an assessment against everyone and to examine each living being concerning all their disrespectful actions which they did disrespectfully and concerning all the vicious things which disrespectful deviators spoke against the Lord.” ¹⁶ These people are complainers and blamers who travel according to their desires for themselves, and their mouths say excessively self-important things, impressing people for their own benefit.

¹⁷ But you, loved ones, be mindful of the statements that have already been made by the emissaries of our lord, Jesus Christ ¹⁸ because they told you, “At the end of the time, there will be people who mock others, traveling according to their own disrespectful desires.” ¹⁹ These people are the ones who cause separation, selfish people who do not have the Life-breath. ²⁰ But you, loved ones, who build onto yourselves because of the most sacred aspect of your faithfulness and who pray with the Sacred Life-breath, ²¹ watch over yourselves with the love of God, accepting the loving faithfulness of our lord Jesus Christ for agelong life. ²² Certainly, show loving faithfulness toward those who separate themselves. ²³ Also, restore them, pulling them out of the fire. Also, show loving faithfulness toward them with respect, hating even the clothes stained by bodily impulsiveness.

²⁴ To the one who is able to protect you, so you don’t fall down and so you stand without blemish in celebration in the presence of God’s praiseworthiness— ²⁵ to the only God, our liberator, through Jesus Christ our lord, be praise, celebration, strength, and authority before the whole Age, now, and for the whole Age. Amen.