Jude 1:22

ver. Jude 1:22 evlea/te diakrinome,nouj {C}

Instead of the verb “to have mercy on” (whether spelled evlea/te, as in a B C² Y 88, or evleei/te, as in K L P 049 056 0142 Byz Lect), several witnesses read evle,gcete, meaning “convince” or “refute” (A C* 33 81 1739 vg cop^bo arm Ephraem Cassiodorus). Although the latter reading was widely known in the ancient church (cf. the versions and fathers that support it), a majority of the Committee preferred to follow the testimony of the Alexandrian text (a B) and regarded evle,gcete as a scribal modification introduced in order to differentiate the statement from that in the clause ou]j de. evlea/te in ver. Jude 1:23, thus producing a sequence progressing from severity (“reprove”) to compassion (“show mercy”).

Instead of diakrinome,nouj (î⁷² a A B C 33 81 1739 al), the Textus Receptus, following most of the later witnesses (K P most minuscules), reads diakrino,menoi. The latter reading is obviously a secondary development, introduced by copyists in order to conform the participle to the nominative case in agreement with the following two participles in ver. Jude 1:23 (a`rpa,zontej and misou/ntej).