Jude - Revelation 1

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Salutation

¹ Jude,^[a] a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,

To those who are called, who are beloved^[b] in^[c] God the Father and kept safe for^[d] Jesus Christ:^(A)

² May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

Occasion of the Letter

³ Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once and for all handed on to the saints.^{(B) 4} For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into debauchery and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.^[e](C)

Judgment on False Teachers

⁵ Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, once and for all, that Jesus, who saved^[f] a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.^{(D) 6} And the angels who did not keep their own position but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day.^{(E) 7} Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust,^[g] serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.^(F)

⁸ Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.^{[h](G) 9} But when the archangel Michael disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander^[i] against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”^{(H) 10} But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct. ¹¹ Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain and perish in Korah’s rebellion.^{(I) 12} These are blots^[j] on your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves.^[k] They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;^{(J) 13} wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever.^(K)

¹⁴ It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “See, the Lord is coming^[l] with ten thousands of his holy ones,^{(L) 15} to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly^[m] of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” ¹⁶ These are grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their lusts;^[n] their mouths utter bombastic nonsense, flattering people to their own advantage.^(M)

Warnings and Exhortations

¹⁷ But you, beloved, must remember the words previously spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁸ for they said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts.”^{(N) 19} It is these worldly people, devoid of the Spirit, who are causing divisions. ²⁰ But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit;^{(O) 21} keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to^[o] eternal life.^{(P) 22} And have mercy on some who are wavering; ²³ save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies.^[p](Q)

Benediction

²⁴ Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing,^{(R) 25} to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.^(S)

Introduction and Salutation

1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place, and he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,^{(T) 2} who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.^(U)

³ Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

⁴ John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,^{(V) 5} and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed^[q] us from our sins by his blood ⁶ and made us a kingdom, priests serving^[r] his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.^(W)

So it is to be. Amen.^(X)

⁸ “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.^(Y)

A Vision of Christ

⁹ I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.^{[s](Z) 10} I was in the spirit^[t] on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet^{(AA) 11} saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

¹² Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,^{(AB) 13} and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.^{(AC) 14} His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire;^{(AD) 15} his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.^{(AE) 16} In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.^(AF)

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last^{(AG) 18} and the Living One. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.^{(AH) 19} Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. ²⁰ As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.^(AI)