Jude 1:12
“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;”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Jude piles up images for these men: hidden stains at the love-feasts, waterless clouds, and fruitless, uprooted trees, all promise without substance.
What Does Jude 1:12 Mean?
Jude turns to vivid pictures. These men are spots, hidden blemishes at the feasts of charity, the shared meals where believers expressed their love for one another. They feast without fear, shepherding only themselves. Then Jude reaches into nature: they are clouds without water, driven by the wind, promising rain that never comes.
He adds trees in late autumn whose fruit has withered, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, utterly lifeless. Every image says the same thing: all appearance, no substance. They take a place among God's people and give nothing back, looking like a source of nourishment while offering only emptiness. By contrast Christ is the living water and the true vine, full of all his promises. Jude wants his readers to know the difference between the show of life and life itself.
In the Original Language
agapais (ἀγάπαις), "feasts of charity" — the early believers’ shared love-feasts, meals of fellowship the intruders abused.