Book of Common Prayer

Contend for the faith

¹ Judah, slave of Jesus the Messiah, brother of James, to those who are called, the people whom God loves and whom Jesus the Messiah keeps safe! ² May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.

³ Beloved, I was doing my best to write to you about the rescue in which we share, but I found it necessary to write to you to urge you to struggle hard for the faith which was given once and for all to God’s people. ⁴ Some people have sneaked in among you, it seems, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation—ungodly people, who are transforming God’s grace into licentiousness, and denying the one and only master, our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

False teachers

⁵ I do want to remind you, even though you know it all well, that when the Lord once and for all delivered his people out of the land of Egypt, he subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶ In the same way, when some of the angels did not keep to their rightful place of authority, but abandoned their own home, he kept them under conditions of darkness and in eternal chains to await the judgment of the great day. ⁷ In similar fashion, Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities round about, which had lived in gross immorality and lusted after unnatural flesh, are set before us as a pattern, undergoing the punishment of endless fire.

⁸ However, these people are behaving in the same way! They are dreaming their way into defiling the flesh, rejecting authority and cursing the Glorious Ones. ⁹ Even Michael the archangel, when disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not presume to lay against him a charge of blasphemy, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you.” ¹⁰ These people, however, curse anything they don’t know. They are like dumb animals; there are some things they understand instinctively—but it is these very things that destroy them. ¹¹ A curse on them! They go off in the way of Cain; they give themselves over for money into Balaam’s deceitful ways; they are destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. ¹² These are the ones who pollute your love-feasts; they share your table without fear while simply looking after their own needs. They are waterless clouds blown along by the winds. They are fruitless autumn trees, doubly dead and uprooted. ¹³ They are stormy waves out at sea, splashing up their own shameful ways. They are wandering stars, and the deepest everlasting darkness has been kept for them in particular.

¹⁴ Enoch, the seventh in line from Adam, prophesied about these people. “Look!” he said. “The Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones, ¹⁵ to perform judgment against all, and to charge every human being with all the ungodly ways in which they have done ungodly things, and with every harsh word which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” ¹⁶ These people are always grumbling and complaining, chasing off after their own desires. From their mouths come arrogant words, buttering people up for the sake of gain.

The parable of the wedding feast

22 Jesus spoke to them once again in parables.

² “The kingdom of heaven,” he said, “is like a king who made a wedding feast for his son. ³ He sent his slaves to call the invited guests to the wedding, and they didn’t want to come.

⁴ “Again he sent other slaves, with these instructions: ‘Say to the guests, Look! I’ve got my dinner ready; my bulls and fatted calves have been killed; everything is prepared. Come to the wedding!’

⁵ “But they didn’t take any notice. They went off, one to his own farm, another to see to his business. ⁶ The others laid hands on his slaves, abused them and killed them. ⁷ (The king was angry, and sent his soldiers to destroy those murderers and burn down their city.) ⁸ Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but the guests didn’t deserve it. ⁹ So go to the roads leading out of town, and invite everyone you find to the wedding.’ ¹⁰ The slaves went off into the streets and rounded up everyone they found, bad and good alike. And the wedding was filled with partygoers.

¹¹ “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who wasn’t wearing a wedding suit.

¹² “ ‘My friend,’ he said to him, ‘how did you get in here without a wedding suit?’ And he was speechless. ¹³ Then the king said to the servants, ‘Tie him up, hands and feet, and throw him into the darkness outside, where people weep and grind their teeth.’

¹⁴ “Many are called, you see, but few are chosen.”