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by Rick Dietrich

The Wonderful, Frightening Letter of Jude

Fred Craddock writes about “Jude” that “one who pauses long enough to read [the letter] may find more delight than dread, more familiarity than strangeness” (Westminster Bible Companion, p. 127). This is to acknowledge that the letter is dreadfilled, and strange. The writer is filled with fear of evil and wants to fill those who read the letter with the same fear — of evil that is real and present and personal, an evil that denies Christ, as Craddock also points out not by taking a certain theological position but by acting in certain Christ-denying ways.

The letter is strange, especially in the sense of wonderful, because of its imagery: rain clouds empty of rain, lunatic waves capped with shame instead of foam, misguided stars confusing the night sky. It is filled with wonderful poetry. It begs for a poetic translation.

Here as an attempt at one. It is not without its problems. I first thought of putting Jude into English tetrameters, lines short and vigorous to convey the letter’s urgency. Halfway through, however, I realized that didn’t work: the tone of the letter was urgent, but the rhythm of the letter was looser, more sinuous. So, I began again, experimenting with both hexameters and pentameters. The last “worked.”

Translating always involves making choices, trying to be faithful both to the original and to today’s reader. And making verse is always propadeutic in the sense that the choice of the line will shape the meaning, so that translation is always in the danger of becoming paraphrase. At any rate, I have tried what follows to find the mind and heart of Jude and give them their proper rhythm, one that communicates the original writer’s great, but familiar, concern for his readers and his desire to make the evil they find in and among them real and reprehensible.

Craddock is also right when he says that “not everything said to [Jude’s immediate audience] is portable to us.” But the letter does raise enduring questions: What is the nature of human evil? How much is it related to what we think and how much to what we do? How dangerous is it to others? And, how do we best resist it? Or, must we, at times, simply flee?

JUDE, TO THOSE GOD LOVES

I, Jude, a servant of Jesus, the Christ,
and James’s brother, write: to those God calls,
to those God loves, to those Christ keeps. To you
be mercy, peace, abundant love.
be mercy, peace, abundant love. My hope
had been to write to you about salvation,
the joy we share. Instead, I find, I write
about the faith, the trust that we’ve been given:
Hold on to it. Hold hard. For certain men
(I wrote about before, God-hating men,
already damned — long since!) — are secretly
stealing in again among you to deny
that Jesus Christ is our one, only Lord
and Master. Would he bind us so, they ask,
whose grace is free? Grace sets you free: believe,
then, what you will; do . . . what you will. You’re free,
it doesn’t matter.
it doesn’t matter. But, all this you know.
Remember though that the same Lord who saved
his people out of Egypt, not long later
destroyed those who did not believe. I say:
Even the angels who abandoned him —
where are they? Kept in darkness, still, in chains,
from then to now to Judgment Day, in chains.
Of Sodom and Gomorrah, it’s much the same.
They turned away; they turned the towns around them
to loveless sex, perversion; and they burned.
And burn, continuously.

And burn, continuously. Now, these fellows,
lured by their dreams — nightmares! They lie in filth,
they lie to you, they curse the angels. Michael,
remember, wouldn’t even curse the devil,
when they were arguing about the body
of Moses, only said, “The Lord rebuke you.”

But these men curse whatever they don’t get.
The little they do doesn’t come to them
by any sort of normal, human thinking
but by instinct, the way dogs run to garbage —
with the same wretched, retching result.
The Lord rebuke them, walking beside Cain,
palms out like Balaam, joining Korah’s troop
of fools. And still you let them eat with you? —
as if you didn’t know how they corrupt
your meals for their own fat and hollow pleasures:
for they are like rain clouds bringing no rain;
or, like fruit trees empty of fruit (dead even,
rooted in rot). Or they’re like lunatic
waves capped with shame instead of foam. Lost stars,
confusing the night sky.

confusing the night sky. They are, as Enoch,
in Adam’s seventh generation, said
(that long ago) “godless.” “See here,” he said,
“the Lord is coming with his thousand thousands
to judge us all, and to convict the godless —
their godless acts, their godless ways, the harsh
and godless words that godless sinners speak
against him.” Like these men, grumbling, fault-finding,
following their own ill desires then boasting
of it and flattering you to go along.
Remember what the Lord’s apostles said,
my friends — to you: “There will be scoffers, then,
though stuffed with lust, completely void of sense.”
desiring only, as I said before,
what instinct tells them to. What else could they?
There is no Spirit in them.

There is no Spirit in them. But you, friends,
keep praying in the Spirit, holding hard
to holy faith. The love of God — that too
hold hard, as you anticipate the mercy
of Jesus Christ that leads to life.

of Jesus Christ that leads to life. Meanwhile,
to those who waver tender tender mercy,
though others you may have to save by strength,
as firemen rescue from a fire. But some
you must just fear: their flesh is so decayed
it rots their clothes — and anyone who’d touch them.
Have mercy on yourselves. Leave them alone.
And now, to him who keeps you safe, prevents
your fall, presents you pure to God, our savior —
through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, power,
and majesty from ages past to now,
from now to ages yet to come. Amen.

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