1. From Jude, servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James —To those who have been called by God, who live in the love of God the Father and the protection of Jesus Christ:
2. May mercy, peace, and love be yours in full measure.
3. My dear friends, I was doing my best to write to you about the salvation we share in common, when I felt the need of writing at once to encourage you to fight on for the faith which once and for all God has given to his people.
4. For some godless people have slipped in unnoticed among us, persons who distort the message about the grace of our God in order to excuse their immoral ways, and who reject Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord. Long ago the Scriptures predicted the condemnation they have received.
5. For even though you know all this, I want to remind you of how the Lord once rescued the people of Israel from Egypt, but afterwards destroyed those who did not believe.
6. Remember the angels who did not stay within the limits of their proper authority, but abandoned their own dwelling place: they are bound with eternal chains in the darkness below, where God is keeping them for that great Day on which they will be condemned.
7. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah, and the nearby towns, whose people acted as those angels did and indulged in sexual immorality and perversion: they suffer the punishment of eternal fire as a plain warning to all.
8. In the same way also, these people have visions which make them sin against their own bodies; they despise God's authority and insult the glorious beings above.