Jude 1:4 (ASV)

Passage

For there are certain men crept in privily, [even] they who were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Nearby Context

Jude 1:2 Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied.

Jude 1:3 Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.

Jude 1:4 For there are certain men crept in privily, [even] they who were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:5 Now I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Jude 1:6 And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "condemn", "grace", "certain", "crept", "privily", "even", "written", and "beforehand". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "condemn" and "grace", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 3's "Beloved while I was giving all diligence..." into verse 5's "Now I desire to put you in...", so "condemn" and "grace" belong inside that flow. In Jude context, the local focus is Christ, faith, and discipleship.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "condemn" and "grace" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.