1Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope, 2to Timothy, my true child in faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3As I urged you when I was going into Macedonia, stay at Ephesus that you might command certain men not to teach a different doctrine, 4and not to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than God’s stewardship, which is in faith. 5But the goal of this command is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith, 6from which things some, having missed the mark, have turned away to vain talking, 7desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say nor about what they strongly affirm.
8But we know that the law is good if a person uses it lawfully, 9as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave-traders, for liars, for perjurers, and for any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine, 11according to the Good News of the glory of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.
12I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service, 13although I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. 14The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. 15The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. 16However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience for an example of those who were going to believe in him for eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
18I commit this instruction to you, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies which were given to you before, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19holding faith and a good conscience, which some having thrust away made a shipwreck concerning the faith, 20of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they might be taught not to blaspheme.
The book of Jude contains several triads, the first found in verses 1 and 2. The first triad describes what it means to be a Christian: they are "beloved" in God the Father. This is the only New Testament passage in which Christians are said to be "beloved in God the Father." 1 Other references present the believer as being "in Christ" or "in the Lord." Christians are a permanent object of God the Father's love.
Verse two contains the next triad, that of the multiplication of mercy, peace, and love upon the believer. These qualities are named in the form of a prayer for those receiving the letter. While mercy is only mentioned in a greeting four times in the New Testament, those occurrences are important as they always occur as a preliminary to a warning against false teaching (2 John 3; 1 Tim 1:2; 2 Tim 1:2). Wolff defines mercy “as feeling sympathy with another. The word used here designates especially such sympathy as manifests itself in acts, does not merely abide in the heart or show itself in words."2 The outcome of the sinner realizing that he has received mercy from a righteous God is peace. That “tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God, and content with its earthly lot, of whatsoever sort that is’ (Thayer),”3 a peace that comes through our relationship with God.
The World English Bible (used in the HVSB) retains the reading "sanctified" (hagiadzo, ἁγιάζω) by God the Father, but the Nestle text reads "love" (agapao, ἀγαπάω), which is probably the better reading. ↩︎
Richard Wolff, A Commentary on the Epistle of Jude, p. 46. ↩︎
Joseph Henry Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 219. ↩︎