Doubt or dispute (Jude 9 and 22-23) 211 “doubt” and on reading the accusative plural pronoun ou{", “these”, which is placed at the beginning of v. 22, as though it refers to the recipients of Jude’s letter. With this rendering, both grantor and recipients of mercy are the community of the faithful. However, at the beginning of this article, I have shown that the translation “doubt” for diakrivnomai is not supported by the classical/ Hellenistic Greek lexical system; further, the immediate and larger literary contexts of Jude’s text do not demand a special NT meaning for diakrivnomai. Also, whereas it is grammatically possible that the pronoun ou{" might refer to subgroups among the faithful (whom Jude addresses in vv. 17, 20-21) or among the infiltrators/ separatists (whom Jude addresses in vv. 16, 19), these options are excluded on contextual grounds (36). In my opinion, Jude places the expression kai; ou{", “and these”, together with the participle diakrinomevnou" (with which it is in grammatical agreement) at the beginning of v. 22 in order to establish a link with v. 19 that allows his audience to identify the diakrinomenoi, “disputers”, of v. 22 to be identical with the querulous murmurers and spiritless separatists in vv. 16, 19. My assessment of Jude’s vocabulary (i.e., the translation “disputers” for diakrivnomai) and syntax (i.e., the plural pronoun ou{" as referent to the separatists mentioned in v. 19) is supported by several interrelated arguments. First, in the passage leading up to v. 22, Jude uses the distinct [B – C – B1 – C1] pattern to repeatedly contrast the members of the outside group, the querulous murmurers/separatists (ou|toiv eijsin; [B][B1]), with the inside group of the faithful (uJmei'" dev; [C][C1]). Within this section (vv. 16-21), Jude does not provide information that supports an abrupt shift of his audience’s attention from themselves (uJmei'"; [C][C1]) and the infiltrators (ou|toi; [B][B1]) to another subgroup, diakrinomenoi, whose existence he neglects to mention in his preceding text. The plural participle ajpodiorivzonte", “the separatists” (v. 19) — perhaps the only word in this literary context that expresses division — describes these separatists’ divisive influence within the community as a whole, but does not foreshadow divisions among those who are faithful. The translation “separatists” for ajpodiorivzonte" attempts to (36) Cf. J.S. Allen’s (“A New Possibility for the Three-Clause Format of Jude 22-3”, NTS 44 [1998] 134-135) critique of the common approach to these verses, i.e., that they address various groups of believers exposed to different degrees of peril. Allen (135, 140) argues in a similar vein, stating that the context “lacks any indication of three distinct groups”.