<p>2:10- see on Jude 14.</p><p><em>Chief among these are those that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries</em>- Amongst those to be condemned, there are &quot;chief&quot; and also lesser ones, just as there will be grades of reward amongst the righteous. These gradations reflect the Father's huge sensitivity towards human behaviour.</p><p>In a sense, the Angels deal with men according to men&rsquo;s own perceptions of themselves, and with what can only be described as a certain spiritual culture. They do not &ldquo;speak evil of dignities&rdquo;, as exemplified in the way the Angelic voice from Heaven addressed the wicked Nebuchadnezzar whom they were about to depose as &ldquo;O king Nebuchadnezzar&rdquo; (Dan. 4:31). This isn&rsquo;t only an example to us of not being abrasive to people even if we know them to be seriously in the wrong. It&rsquo;s an example of how we should seek to deal with people within the terms of their own perceptions. It makes one wonder whether at the judgment, the Lord will address those who were known in their lives as &lsquo;Doctors&rsquo; or &lsquo;Reverends&rsquo;&hellip; obviously making the point, as the Angel was to Nebuchadnezzar, that human advantage means so absolutely nothing before the ultimate analysis and set of values of His judgment.</p><p>The &quot;them&quot; of :11 refer to the same &quot;dignitaries&quot;; Angels do not rail at them but instead say &quot;The Lord rebuke you&quot; (in the parallel Jude 9). The example of this cited in Jude 9 is a quotation from how in Zechariah, the Angels rebuke the human adversaries / local government authorities who were opposing the rebuilding of Jerusalem. The &quot;dignitaries&quot; <em>doxa</em><em> are</em> not Angels themselves, because :11 goes on to say that Angels do not talk about &quot;dignitaries&quot; in this way but rather call down the Lord's rebuke upon them (Jude 9). Seeing there are no sinful Angels, it cannot be that the &quot;dignitaries&quot; are Angels. Note that <em>doxa</em> is used of sinful humans and not Angels by Peter in 1 Pet. 1:24.</p><p>I noted on 1 Peter that some of Peter's Jewish refugee converts in Asia were getting in trouble with the local authorities and considered themselves above the local laws. They slandered &quot;dignitaries&quot; and also despised &quot;dominion&quot; or &quot;government&quot;; the word is used about human civil government in&nbsp;Eph. 1:21. These people are here called &quot;self willed&quot;. They considered themselves above the law and had created themselves as the final arbiter of right and wrong; they were as James says, judging the law and speaking evil of it by considering themselves as the ultimate law (James 4:11).</p>