3

My loved ones, while my thoughts were full of a letter which I was going to send you about our common salvation, it was necessary for me to send you one requesting you with all my heart to go on fighting strongly for the faith which has been given to the saints once and for ever.

4

For certain men have come among you secretly, marked out before in the holy Writings for this evil fate, men without the fear of God, turning his grace into an unclean thing, and false to our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5

Now it is my purpose to put you in mind, though you once had knowledge of all these things, of how the Lord, having taken a people safely out of Egypt, later sent destruction on those who had no faith

6

And the angels who did not keep to their kingdom but went out from the place which was theirs, he has put in eternal chains and in dark night till the great day of the judging.

7

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the towns near them, having like these, given themselves up to unclean desires and gone after strange flesh, have been made an example, undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

8

In the same way these dreamers make the flesh unclean, having no respect for authorities, and say evil of rulers.

9

Now when Michael, one of the chief angels, was fighting against the Evil One for the body of Moses, fearing to make use of violent words against him, he only said, May the Lord be your judge.

10

But these men say evil about such things as they have no knowledge of and the things of which they have natural knowledge, like beasts without reason, are the cause of their destruction.

11

A curse on them! They have gone in the way of Cain, running uncontrolled into the error of Balaam for reward, and have come to destruction by saying evil against the Lord, like Korah.

12

These men are unseen rocks at your love-feasts, when they take part in them with you, keepers of sheep who without fear take the food of the sheep clouds without water rushing before the wind, wasted trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots,

13

Violent waves of the sea, streaming with their shame, wandering stars for whom the darkest night is kept in store for ever.

14

The prophet Enoch, who was the seventh after Adam, said of these men, The Lord came with tens of thousands of his saints,

15

To be the judge of all, and to give a decision against all those whose lives are unpleasing to him, because of the evil acts which they have done, and because of all the hard things which sinners without fear of God have said against him.

16

These are the men who make trouble, ever desiring change, going after evil pleasures, using high-sounding words, respecting men's position in the hope of reward.