유다서 1

Greeting

¹From Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, to those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept safe for Jesus Christ.^{abc 2}May mercy, peace, and love be yours in ever greater measure.

Fight for the faith

³Dear friends, I was doing all I could to write to you about the salvation we hold in common, but I found I had to write and urge you to fight hard for the faith that was handed over to God’s holy people once for all. ⁴For some people have slipped in among you without being noticed. Long ago it was written that they would face this judgment. They are ungodly people who twist our God’s grace into an excuse for shameless living, and who disown Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.^de

Warnings from the past

⁵Now I want to remind you of something, though you know it all already. Jesus saved a people out of the land of Egypt, but afterward he destroyed those among them who did not believe. ⁶And the angels who did not stay in the place of authority that was theirs, but abandoned their own dwelling, he has kept in everlasting chains in deepest darkness, ready for judgment when the great day comes.^{fg 7}So too Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns around them, which, like those angels, gave themselves to sexual immorality and went after flesh of another kind, now lie before us as an example, suffering the penalty of eternal fire.^h

What these dreamers are like

⁸Yet in the same way these dreamers defile their bodies, reject the Lord’s authority, and slander the glorious ones.^{ij 9}But when Michael, the archangel, was in a dispute with the devil, arguing over the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a slanderous judgment against him. Instead he said, “May the Lord rebuke you.” ¹⁰But these people slander what they know nothing about, while the things they know by instinct, like animals without reason, are the very things that destroy them. ¹¹Woe to them! They have walked in the way of Cain. For the sake of pay they have thrown themselves into the error of Balaam. They have perished in the rebellion of Korah. ¹²At your love feasts these people are like reefs hidden under the water. They eat with you without a trace of fear, shepherds who look after only themselves. They are clouds that bring no rain, blown along by the winds; trees in late autumn with no fruit, twice dead and pulled up by the roots; ¹³wild waves of the sea, churning up their shameful deeds like foam; wandering stars, for whom the blackest darkness has been kept forever.^kl

Enoch’s prophecy

¹⁴Enoch, the seventh in line from Adam, also prophesied about these people. He said, “Look! The Lord is coming with tens of thousands of his holy ones ¹⁵to bring judgment on everyone, and to prove all the ungodly guilty of every ungodly deed they have done in their ungodliness, and of every hard word spoken against him by ungodly sinners.”^{mn 16}These people grumble and find fault with their lot in life. They live by their own desires. Their mouths speak big, boastful words, and they flatter people to get something out of them.

Keep yourselves in God’s love

¹⁷But you, dear friends, must remember the words spoken in advance by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁸They used to tell you, “In the last time, scoffers will come, driven by their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹These people create divisions among you. They are worldly, and the Spirit is not in them. ²⁰But you, dear friends, keep building yourselves up on your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. ²¹Keep yourselves within God’s love, while you look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings eternal life. ²²Be merciful to some who are wavering. ²³Save others by pulling them out of the fire. To still others show mercy, but with fear: hate even the clothes their sinful flesh has soiled.^op

Praise to the God who guards you

²⁴Now to the one who is able to guard you from stumbling, and to bring you into the presence of his glory without blemish and rejoicing greatly, ²⁵to God alone, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before time began, now, and for all the ages to come. Amen.^q