Open English Translation YUD (JUD) Chapter 1

3 Friends, I was so enthusiastic to write to you concerning our salvation that we have in common, but I needed to write to you all, encouraging you to stand strong for the teaching that was entrusted to the believers at a certain point in time. 4 Because some people have quietly come into our groups who think they can take advantage of God’s grace to bring in immoral lifestyles and disowning the only master, and our master who is Yeshua the messiah. But they are destined for judgement.

5 [ref]Now I want to remind you that although you all know how Yeshua rescued our people out of Egypt, yet at the same time he destroyed the ones who didn’t believe. 6 Even the messengers who broke their own rules and left their own domain have been held in eternal chains in the darkness until the time of judgement in the great day. 7 [ref]Similarly Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns around them stay in our minds as an example of the judgement of eternal fire due to similar sexual perversions.

8 in the same way these dreamers defile their own bodies while rejecting the master and dishonouring those who should be honoured. 9 [ref]Even Michael, one of the top messengers, when he was arguing with the devil about Mosheh’ body, he didn’t belittle him, but left it to the master to punish him. 10 But these people mock what they don’t even grasp, but they’ll be destroyed by what their animal instincts do understand. 11 [ref]Oh dear! Because they’ve followed the actions of Cain and have embraced the deception of Balaam for monetary gain, so too they’ll perish like Korah’s destruction. 12 These are the people who ruin your love feasts when they eat without shame and only look after themselves. They’re like clouds that are blown away by the wind without bringing the needed rain or trees that don’t produce any fruit then are doubly useless by falling over; 13 like wild waves in the ocean that foam in their own shame or like unreliable wandering stars that are already doomed to the darkest darkness in the next age.

14 [ref]Enoch (the seventh generation from Adam) prophesied way back then about these people, “Look, the master, surrounded by tens of thousands of his holy messengers, came 15 to sentence everybody and to punish everyone who rejected God for everything they did that demonstrated this rejection and everything they said against him.” 16 This includes their grumbling and complaining, the fulfilling of their own lustful desires, the arrogant way that they spoke, and their flattering of others in order to gain from them.

17 But you, friends, always be thinking about how the missionaries of our master Yeshua the messiah 18 [ref]told you that mockers near the end of time would come out following their own god-rejecting lusts. 19 These people will cause division as they just demonstrate sensuality since they don’t know God’s spirit. 20 But you, friends, work to increase your faith in God, praying as the holy spirit helps you. 21 Keep receiving God’s love as you look forward to living forever thanks to the mercy of our master, Yeshua the messiah.

22 Show grace to those still doubting 23 whereas others need to be ‘snatched out of the fire’ in order to be saved. To some, show mercy but very carefully, hating even their clothes which reflect their crude lifestyles.

24-25 24-25Our master, Yeshua the messiah, is the infallible one who is quite capable of looking after all of us so that we can stand blameless in front of him and praise him in his full honour and greatness. Let us honour and praise our only God and saviour, acknowledging his greatness and power and authority through Yeshua from before the creation, right through these current times, and in the age to come. May it be so.