Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles

1Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James, to the called, who are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved by Jesus Christ;

2Mercy to you and peace and love be increased.

3Beloved, when I was applying all care to write to you of the common salvation, I deemed it necessary to write to you in order to exhort you,that ye should by contending help the faith once delivered to the saints.

4For crept in stealthily have certain men, ordained of old to this judgment, ungodly, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying God, the only sovereign, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

5Now I wish to remind you, though ye once knew this, that the Lord, after having saved the people from the land of Egypt, afterwards destroyed the unbelieving;

6And the angels, who had not kept their own pre-eminence, but left their own abode, he has reserved under darkness in eternal chains for the judgment of the great day.

7As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities around them, having in like manner committed fornication and gone after strange flesh, have been set forth for an example, undergoing the judgment of eternal fire:

8In like manner also do these, deluded with dreams, pollute the flesh, reject government, and heap curses on dignities:

9Yet Michael the archangel, when, contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not to bring against him a reviling judgment, but said,

10“The Lord rebuke thee.” But these revile those things which they know not, but what things they know naturally, as brute beasts; in these they corrupt themselves.

11Woe to them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam's reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

12These are stains in your brotherly feasts, feasting with you, heedlessly feeding themselves; clouds without water, driven about by winds; withering trees of autumn, fruitless, twice dead, rooted up;

13Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever:

14And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, formerly prophesied of these, saying, “Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints,

15To execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of the ungodly deeds of ungodliness which they have in an ungodly manner done, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God.”

16These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks swelling words, admiring persons for the sake of gain.

17But ye, beloved, remember the words which have been spoken before by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;

18For they have told you, that in the last time scoffers would come, walking after their own ungodly lusts.

19These are they who separate themselves, being sensual, having not the Spirit.

20But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,

21Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

22And on some have mercy, making a difference;

23But others save by fear, snatching them from the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

24Now to him who can keep you free from sin and set you faultless before the presence of his glory with exultation

25To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and to all ages. Amen.