(3) The Sinaitic MS. transposes the "once" or "once for all" (ἅπαξ) from "know" to "saved," and makes it answer to the "afterwards," or "the second time" (τὸ δεύτερον) which follows. In this it is supported by the Armenian Version and a single cursive of the fourteenth century.[117] If it were adopted, the sentence would run thus: "Now I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things, how that the Lord, having _once_ saved a people out of the land of Egypt, _afterwards_ destroyed them that believed not." The correspondence between "once" and "afterwards"--"having _a single time_ saved, ... _the second time_ He destroyed"--is at first sight attractive; but it is precisely this superficial attractiveness which has caused the corruption of the text. A recent writer pleads for its adoption, but his reasons are not convincing.[118] The external evidence against the proposed transposition is enormous; and there is no strong internal evidence against the best-attested text (as there is against the reading "Jesus") to turn the scale. "Though ye know all this _once for all_" makes excellent sense; and so also does "He who saved a people out of Egypt, _the second time_ (viz. in the wilderness) destroyed them that believed not." This collection of various readings, out of which it is impossible to select the true text with anything like certainty, is worth remembering in considering the theory of _verbal_ inspiration. If every word that St. Jude wrote was supernaturally dictated, why has not every word been supernaturally preserved? It is manifest that God has not, either miraculously or in any other way, secured that the exact words written by St. Jude should come down to us without alteration. The alterations are so ancient, so widely diffused, and so numerous, that we are unable to decide what St. Jude's exact words were. We are not even certain that among the numerous variations we have got his exact words. This is not a common case. The usual problem, when various readings occur, is to select the right reading out of several that have been handed down to us, there being no reason to doubt that one of them is the original reading of the autograph. But there are a few passages, and this is one of them, where one may reasonably doubt whether the original reading has not been altogether lost (Acts vii. 46; xiii. 32 [comp. Heb. xi. 4]; xix. 40; xxvi. 28; Rom. xv. 32; 1 Cor. xii. 2; Col. ii. 18, 23; Heb. iv. 2; x. 1; 1 Tim. vi. 7; 2 Tim. i. 13; 2 Peter iii. 10, 12; Jude 22, 23). This result might easily be produced through an error in the earliest copies made from the original document, or through a slip made by the amanuensis who wrote the original document. There are minds to which this supposition is very repugnant; and there are writers who assure us that in Biblical criticism "_conjectural emendation_ must never be resorted to, even in passages of acknowledged difficulty," or that