Jude 1:12 These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm--shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted--twice dead.

◄ Jude 1:12 ►

Parallel Verses

New International Version
These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm--shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted--twice dead.

English Standard Version
These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;

New American Standard Bible
These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;

King James Bible
These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Holman Christian Standard Bible
These are the ones who are like dangerous reefs at your love feasts. They feast with you, nurturing only themselves without fear. They are waterless clouds carried along by winds; trees in late autumn--fruitless, twice dead, pulled out by the roots;

International Standard Version
These people are stains on your love feasts. They feast with you without any sense of awe. They are shepherds who care only for themselves. They are waterless clouds blown about by the winds. They are autumn trees that are fruitless, totally dead, and uprooted.

American Standard Version
These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Douay-Rheims Bible
These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots,

Darby Bible Translation
These are spots in your love-feasts, feasting together with you without fear, pasturing themselves; clouds without water, carried along by the winds; autumnal trees, without fruit, twice dead, rooted up;

Young's Literal Translation
These are in your love-feasts craggy rocks; feasting together with you, without fear shepherding themselves; clouds without water, by winds carried about; trees autumnal, without fruit, twice dead, rooted up;

Cross References

Proverbs 25:14
Whoever boasts himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.

Ezekiel 34:2
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say to them, Thus said the Lord GOD to the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?

Ezekiel 34:8
As I live, said the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock;

Matthew 15:13
But he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up.

1 Corinthians 11:20
When you come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.

1 Corinthians 11:21
For in eating every one takes before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.

Ephesians 4:14
That we from now on be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Hebrews 13:9
Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

2 Peter 2:13
And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

2 Peter 2:17
These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

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Commentaries

Matthew Henry's Commentary

1:8-16 False teachers are dreamers; they greatly defile and grievously wound the soul. These teachers are of a disturbed mind and a seditious spirit; forgetting that the powers that be, are ordained of God, Ro 13:1. As to the contest about the body of Moses, it appears that Satan wished to make the place of his burial known to the Israelites, in order to tempt them to worship him, but he was prevented, and vented his rage in desperate blasphemy. This should remind all who dispute never to bring railing charges. Also learn hence, that we ought to defend those whom God owns. It is hard, if not impossible, to find any enemies to the Christian religion, who did not, and do not, live in open or secret contradiction to the principles of natural religion. Such are here compared to brute beasts, though they often boast of themselves as the wisest of mankind. They corrupt themselves in the things most open and plain. The fault lies, not in their understandings, but in their depraved wills, and their disordered appetites and affections. It is a great reproach, though unjust to religion, when those who profess it are opposed to it in heart and life. The Lord will remedy this in his time and way; not in men's blind way of plucking up the wheat with the tares. It is sad when men begin in the Spirit, and end in the flesh. Twice dead; they had been once dead in their natural, fallen state; but now they are dead again by the evident proofs of their hypocrisy. Dead trees, why cumber they the ground! Away with them to the fire. Raging waves are a terror to sailing passengers; but when they get into port, the noise and terror are ended. False teachers are to expect the worst punishments in this world and in that to come. They glare like meteors, or falling stars, and then sink into the blackness of darkness for ever. We have no mention of the prophecy of Enoch in any other part or place of Scripture; yet one plain text of Scripture, proves any point we are to believe. We find from this, that Christ's coming to judge was prophesied of, as early as the times before the flood. The Lord cometh: what a glorious time will that be! Notice how often the word ungodly is repeated. Many now do not at all refer to the terms godly, or ungodly, unless it be to mock at even the words; but it is not so in the language taught us by the Holy Ghost. Hard speeches of one another, especially if ill-grounded, will certainly come into account at the day of judgment. These evil men and seducers are angry at every thing that happens, and never pleased with their own state and condition. Their will and their fancy, are their only rule and law. Those who please their sinful appetites, are most prone to yield to ungovernable passions. The men of God, from the beginning of the world, have declared the doom denounced on them. Such let us avoid. We are to follow men only as they follow Christ.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

12. spots—So 2Pe 2:13, Greek, "spiloi"; but here the Greek is spilades, which elsewhere, in secular writers, means rocks, namely, on which the Christian love-feasts were in danger of being shipwrecked. The oldest manuscript prefixes the article emphatically, "THE rocks." The reference to "clouds … winds … waves of the sea," accords with this image of rocks. Vulgate seems to have been misled by the similar sounding word to translate, as English Version, "spots"; compare however, Jude 23, which favors English Version, if the Greek will bear it. Two oldest manuscripts, by the transcriber's effort to make Jude say the same as Peter, read here "deceivings" for "love-feasts," but the weightiest manuscript and authorities support English Version reading. The love-feast accompanied the Lord's Supper (1Co 11:17-34, end). Korah the Levite, not satisfied with his ministry, aspired to the sacrificing priesthood also: so ministers in the Lord's Supper have sought to make it a sacrifice, and themselves the sacrificing priests, usurping the function of our only Christian sacerdotal Priest, Christ Jesus. Let them beware of Korah's doom!

feeding themselves—Greek, "pasturing (tending) themselves." What they look to is the pampering of themselves, not the feeding of the flock.

without fear—Join these words not as English Version, but with "feast." Sacred feasts especially ought to be celebrated with fear. Feasting is not faulty in itself [Bengel], but it needs to be accompanied with fear of forgetting God, as Job in the case of his sons' feasts.

clouds—from which one would expect refreshing rains. 2Pe 2:17, "wells without water." Professors without practice.

carried about—The oldest manuscripts have "carried aside," that is, out of the right course (compare Eph 4:14).

trees whose fruit withereth—rather, "trees of the late (or waning) autumn," namely, when there are no longer leaves or fruits on the trees [Bengel].

without fruit—having no good fruit of knowledge and practice; sometimes used of what is positively bad.

twice dead—First when they cast their leaves in autumn, and seem during winter dead, but revive again in spring; secondly, when they are "plucked up by the roots." So these apostates, once dead in unbelief, and then by profession and baptism raised from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, but now having become dead again by apostasy, and so hopelessly dead. There is a climax. Not only without leaves, like trees in late autumn, but without fruit: not only so, but dead twice; and to crown all, "plucked up by the roots."