Contend for the Faith

3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you econcerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting fyou to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord 2God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Old and New Apostates

5 But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that gthe Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their 3proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; 7 as hSodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the 4vengeance of eternal fire.

8 iLikewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and jspeak evil of 5dignitaries. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, in 6contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, k“The Lord rebuke you!” 10 lBut these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone in the way mof Cain, nhave run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished oin the rebellion of Korah.

Apostates Depraved and Doomed

12 These are 7spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried 8about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; 13 praging waves of the sea, qfoaming up their own shame; wandering stars rfor whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

14 Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, 15 to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the sharsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

Apostates Predicted

16 These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they tmouth great swelling words, uflattering people to gain advantage. 17 vBut you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 how they told you that wthere would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. 19 These are 9sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.

Maintain Your Life with God

20 But you, beloved, xbuilding yourselves up on your most holy faith, ypraying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, zlooking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

22 And on some have compassion, 1making a distinction; 23 but aothers save 2with fear, bpulling them out of the 3fire, hating even cthe garment defiled by the flesh.