Dear friends, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common Salvation, I felt that I must write to you at once to urge you to fight in defense of the Faith that has once for all been entrusted to the keeping of Christ's People.

Alas for them! They walk in the steps of Cain; led astray by Balaam's love of gain, they plunge into sin, and meet their ruin through rebellion like that of Korah.

They are wild sea waves, foaming with their own shame; they are 'wandering stars,' for which the blackest darkness has been reserved for ever.

To these men, as to others, Enoch, the seventh in descent from Adam, declared-- 'See! the Lord has come with his hosts of holy ones around him,

how they used to say to you-- 'As time draws to an end, there will be scoffers, who will be led by their godless passions.'