What Does Jude 1:23 Mean?
And deliver others with fear, snatching them out of the fire, hating even the tunic stained by the flesh.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.THE KEY
The verse separates the person from the stain: it snatches the person from the fire while naming the flesh-marked garment as what is hated.
THE MEANING
The person is pulled from the fire, while the garment stained by flesh is what is hated. Rescue is urgent, and the fear names the real danger without making the endangered person the object of disgust. What clings to you does not become the whole of you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that rejecting what has corrupted someone requires rejecting that person too.
THE ROOT
ἐσπιλωμένον
espilōmenon
GROWS FROM
σπιλόω
spiloō
to stain or defile
“stained” in this verse is espilōmenon. The Greek names a stain or blemish on the garment. Jude directs hatred toward what is marked by the flesh, while the person remains the one being pulled out.
ALSO GROWS
spilos: spot, blemish
σπίλος
The related noun names the mark itself, bringing the garment’s stain into focus.
aspilos: unstained, without blemish
ἄσπιλος
The related word for being unstained clarifies the contrast between the garment’s mark and its absence.
ἁρπάζοντες
harpazontes
GROWS FROM
ἁρπάζω
harpazō
to snatch, seize, or carry off suddenly
“snatching them out” in this verse is harpazontes. The verb gives the rescue urgency: the person is seized out of the fire. English “pulling” can sound gradual, while the Greek pictures a swift removal from danger.
ALSO GROWS
harpagē: seizure, plunder
ἁρπαγή
This related noun carries the same forceful taking, sharpening the urgency of the rescue.
harpax: rapacious, predatory
ἅρπαξ
This related word shows the same root’s sense of seizing or carrying off.
σῴζετε
sōzete
GROWS FROM
σῴζω
sōzō
to deliver, rescue, or bring safely through
“deliver” in this verse is sōzete. The verb means deliverance, and the next phrase makes that deliverance concrete: people are taken out of the fire. The person is the one delivered; the stained garment remains a separate object of aversion.
ALSO GROWS
sōtēria: deliverance
σωτηρία
The related noun names the act or result of being brought out of danger.
sōtēr: deliverer, rescuer
σωτήρ
This related noun names the one who brings another safely through.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance reaches into danger to remove a person while keeping the danger and its damage distinct from the person.
And the LORD said to the Adversary, May the LORD roar against you, and may the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem roar against you. Is this not a stick snatched from the fire?I overturned some of you, as God overturned Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a brand snatched out of the burning. Yet you have not turned back to me, says the LORD.If anyone's work burns down, he will suffer damage, but he himself will be delivered, yet so as through fire.THE THREAD
If anyone's work burns down, he will suffer damage, but he himself will be delivered, yet so as through fire.Jude’s “save” and Paul’s “saved” are forms of the same Greek verb for deliverance. Both set a person beside the danger of fire; Jude adds the stained garment as a distinct object of hatred.
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