Doubt or dispute (Jude 9 and 22-23) 217 present imperative ejlea'te [A][A1] together with the open relative pronoun ou}" [B][A1], and the absence of information about a qualitative difference between the first and the second ejlea'te [A][A1], constitute central elements of these verses’ literary structure. Jude interweaves two different structures that support, mirror, and magnify the content of his final message to the faithful. Whereas his argument progresses in linear-grammatical and chiastic-thematic fashions, in combination, these grammatic and thematic structures limit each other, thereby causing the clear-cut, linear progression of Jude’s exhortation (which scholars commonly suggest by extracting intra-communal subdivision from vv. 22-23) to be deemphasized (44). In this regard, other of Jude’s grammatical and syntactical choices are of particular interest. First, Jude places diakrinomevnou" at the end of the clause [A]. Whereas this end-positioning of diakrinomevnou" may simply be a matter of style, it is only this participle that identifies the recipients of mercy within this literary context; it appears to have been deliberately placed. Without it, the pronoun ou{" [A] remains ambiguous; with it, the clause ou}" mevn ejlea'te diakrinomevnou", “to these extend mercy, the disputers”, clarifies that Jude is calling the faithful to extend mercy to the disputers (not to other faithful community members). Second, only the first of the three pronouns, ou}" [A], is qualified with a participle, diakrinomevnou", i.e., the clauses [B] and [A1] lack participles or nouns that correspond — either as qualifiers or in their placement — to the participle diakrinomevnou" as seen in [A]. According to my analysis of the function of vv. 22-23 within the context of Jude’s letter, repetition of the accusative plural diakrinomenou" in [B] and [A1] — marked with a single black dot in the v table — would produce grammatical redundancy because the chain of relative pronouns in the accusative (ou{") carries the same information. Indicating that mercy is to be extended to these separatists in v. 22, the participle diakrinomevnou" fulfills its function of resolving ambiguity and is, thereafter, no longer needed. The two subsequent relative pronouns [B][A1] are its grammatical substitutes, i.e., “these” (ou{") are always the disputers (45). (44) Cf., for instance, the progression proposed by the authors mentioned in fn 35, or the progression suggested by the translators of the NRSV: have mercy on some; save others; have mercy on still others. (45) ALLEN, New Possibility, 136-140) makes a similar argument, albeit based on a survey of the use of the mevn – dev construct in classical and Hellenistic Greek (cf. fn 53). With the majority of exegetes, Allen translates diakrinomai “doubt”. v