Deliverance from False Prophets (Jude 1:3–16)
1 UDB Long ago, among the people of Israel, there were false prophets. Today there are some people who do the same with you. At first you will not know who they are, and these teachers will come into your fellowship and they will teach harmful lies, even to the point of denying the Lord who redeemed them, and they will quickly destroy themselves. BSB BSB: Now there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.
2 UDB And many believers will imitate how these false prophets live. In this way they will insult what is true about God. BSB BSB: Many will follow in their depravity, and because of them the way of truth will be defamed.
3 UDB In their greed these false teachers will make a profit from you, telling you lies and using smooth talk. But long ago God decided to punish them, and he will not delay to destroy them. BSB BSB: In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.
4 UDB God destroyed the angels who sinned. He threw them into the worst place in hell and imprisoned them there in darkness in order to keep them there until he judges and punishes them. BSB BSB: For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them deep into hell, placing them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;
5 UDB He also destroyed the people who lived in the world long ago. He saved only eight of them, including Noah, who was a righteous preacher. He did this when he destroyed by a flood all the ungodly people who were living then. BSB BSB: if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;
7 UDB But he rescued Abraham's nephew, Lot, who was a righteous man. Lot was greatly distressed because the people in Sodom were doing very immoral deeds. BSB BSB: and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless
8 UDB That righteous man was in agony because every day he saw and heard those wicked people do things against God's law. BSB BSB: (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—
9 UDB And since the Lord rescued Lot, you can be sure that he knows how to rescue people who honor him and how to keep those who do not honor him ready for the time when he will punish them. BSB BSB: if all this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.
10 UDB He will punish especially severely those who do what they themselves want to do, things that make them displeasing to God. They boldly do whatever they wish to do; they even insult God's powerful angels. BSB BSB: Such punishment is specially reserved for those who indulge the corrupt desires of the flesh and despise authority. Bold and self-willed, they are unafraid to slander glorious beings.
11 UDB But God's angels, even though they are much more powerful than those people, do not insult anyone in front of God, not even them! BSB BSB: Yet not even angels, though greater in strength and power, dare to bring such slanderous charges against them before the Lord.
12 UDB Those people who teach false things—who are like animals that cannot think like us—they say bad things about God, whom they do not even know. So he will destroy them like we hunt down and destroy wild animals that even nature has no use for. BSB BSB: These men are like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be captured and destroyed. They blaspheme in matters they do not understand, and like such creatures, they too will be destroyed.
13 UDB The wrong things they do harm them themselves: They party and get drunk during the daytime and during the nighttime. They are like stains and spots on clothing that once was clean. BSB BSB: The harm they will suffer is the wages of their wickedness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deception as they feast with you.
14 UDB They want to sleep with every woman whom they see. They can never sin enough. They persuade people who are not very faithful to God to join with them. As athletes train for sports, these people train themselves to be greedy. But God has cursed them! BSB BSB: Their eyes are full of adultery; their desire for sin is never satisfied; they seduce the unstable. They are accursed children with hearts trained in greed.
15 UDB They refuse to live like God wants them to. They have imitated what the prophet Balaam, the son of Beor, did long ago. He thought he would act in a wicked way and gain a reward for it. BSB BSB: They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.
16 UDB But God rebuked him for sinning. And even though donkeys do not speak, God used Balaam's own donkey to speak to him with a human voice and stop his insane action. BSB BSB: But he was rebuked for his transgression by a donkey, otherwise without speech, that spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
17 UDB These people who teach falsely are like springs that give no water; they are like clouds that quickly pass overhead before they can give rain. Therefore, God has reserved the darkness of hell for them. BSB BSB: These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.
18 UDB They boast about themselves, but what they say is worth nothing. They persuade people who have recently become believers and who have just now ceased to do wicked things. They persuade them to sin again by doing whatever sinful people like to do. BSB BSB: With lofty but empty words, they appeal to the sensual passions of the flesh and entice those who are just escaping from others who live in error.
19 UDB They tell them that they are free to do whatever they want to do. But they themselves are slaves who must obey whatever their evil minds tell them to do. Certainly a person is a slave to whatever controls him. BSB BSB: They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to depravity. For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
21 UDB It would have been better for them if they had never learned how to live in the right way than to know what was right for them to do and reject the holy commands that God had given to them. BSB BSB: It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then to turn away from the holy commandment passed on to them.
22 UDB The way they are living is like the saying that people may have heard: "They are like dogs that return to eat their own vomit," and, "They are like pigs that have washed themselves and then roll again in the mud." BSB BSB: Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.