Dearly beloved, while I was doing my best to begin writing you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write and urge you to carry on a vigorous defense of the faith that was once for all entrusted to God's people.

Now I want to remind you, though you know it all already, that although the Lord had saved a people out of the land of Egypt, He afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

Alas for them, because they have trod the road that Cain did; for gain they have rushed into Balaam's error and have perished in rebellion like that of Korah!

They are blots on your love feasts while they feast with you, daringly caring for no one but themselves; rainless clouds swept along by winds; leafless trees that bear no fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;

wild waves of the sea foaming up their own shame; wandering stars that are forever doomed to utter darkness.

It was about such men also that Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied when he said: "See! The Lord comes with myriads of His people

to execute judgment upon all, to convict all the godless of their godless deeds which in their godlessness they have committed, and of all the harsh things that godless sinners have said against Him."

But you, dearly beloved, must remember the words that have already been spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and save, snatching them out of the fire; and others you must pity with dread, loathing even the clothes that are soiled by their lower nature.