Jude (Judah) 1:1-8

From Judah, a loving servant of Jesus, the Anointed One, and brother of Jacob. I’m writing to the chosen ones who are wrapped in the love of Father God—kept and guarded for Jesus, the Messiah. May God’s mercy, peace, and love cascade over you! Dearly loved friend, I was fully intending to write to you about our amazing salvation we all participate in, but felt the need instead to challenge you to vigorously defend and contend for the beliefs that we cherish. For God, through the apostles, has once for all entrusted these truths to his holy believers. There have been some who have sneaked in among you unnoticed. They are depraved people whose judgment was prophesied in Scripture a long time ago. They have perverted the message of God’s grace into a license to commit immorality and turn against our only absolute Master, our Lord Jesus Christ. I need to remind you, even though you are familiar with it all, that the Lord Jesus saved his people out of Egypt but subsequently destroyed those who were guilty of unbelief. In the same way, there were heavenly messengers in rebellion who went outside their rightful domain of authority and abandoned their appointed realms. God bound them in everlasting chains and is keeping them in the dark abyss of the netherworld until the judgment of the great day. In a similar way, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and nearby towns gave themselves to sexual immorality and the unnatural desire of different flesh. Now they all serve as examples of those who experience the punishment of eternal fire. In the same way, these sensual “dreamers” corrupt and pollute the natural realm, while on the other hand they reject the spiritual realms of governmental power and repeatedly scoff at heavenly glories.