Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

2: 14.

out spot and blameless in his sight. And consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; just as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things. And in them are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the otherScriptures, to their own destruction.

So you, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness.

But grow in the grace and knowledge
Of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
To him be the glory

Both now and forever
Amen.

JUDE,

A SLAVE OF JESUS CHRIST,

AND

BROTHER OF JAMES,

To those who are called,
Beloved in God the Father,

And kept for Jesus Christ:

Mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied.

Beloved, while I was with all earnestness endeavoring to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write at once to you and to exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For there crept in secretly certain men who were long ago marked out as on their way to this condemnation, godless men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5.

Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, how the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed the unbelievers. And angels who did not keep their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he has kept in perpetual bonds under darkness to the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in the same way with these given themselves over to fornication, and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

Yet in the same way these also in their dreamings defile the flesh, set aside dominion, and revile dignities. But Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he was disputing about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring against him a charge characterized by reviling, but said:

"The Lord rebuke thee."

But these revile whatever they do not know. And what they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason, in these they are destroyed.

Woe to them !

For they went in the way of Cain and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah.

12.

These are they who are hidden rocks in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; wild waves of the sea foaming out their own shame; wandering stars for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.

And to these also Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, and said:

“Behold the Lord came with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the godless of all their godless deeds which they have godlessly done, and of all the hard things which godless sinners have spoken against him."

These are murmurers, faulters of Providence following their desires (and their mouth speaks great swelling words), admiring persons for the sake of advantage.

But you, beloved, remember the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how they used to tell you:

"In the last time there will be mockers, following their own godless desires."

These are they who make separations, sensuous, because they have not the Spirit.

But you, beloved, building up yourselves on

20.

your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

And some rebuke as you debate with them; and some save, snatching them out of the fire, and pity others with fear; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling,

And to present you

blameless

Before the presence of his glory

With exulting joy.

To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord,

Be glory and majesty,

Dominion and power,

Before all time, and now, and for evermore.
Amen.

« ÎnapoiContinuă »