It is not good to accept the person of the wicked. To "accept the person" is to show partiality, to be guided in judgment, not by the facts of a case, or the abstract principles of right or wrong, but by extraneous considerations, as a man's appearance, manners, fortune, family.
(For the expression, comp. Le Proverbs 19:15; Deuteronomy 1:17; and in our book, Proverbs 24:23; Proverbs 28:21.) The Septuagint phrase is 罐慣?關慣??慣菅 ??恝????恝館, which St. Jude adopts (Jude 1:16). Other writers in the New Testament use 貫慣關棺慣?
館琯菅館 ??恝????恝館 in the same sense; e.g. Luke 20:21; Galatians 2:6). To overthrow (turn aside) the righteous in judgment is not good (comp. Isaiah 10:2). The construction is the same as in Proverbs 17:26.
The LXX. adds in the second clause, 恝??灌琯? 恝???菅恝館, which makes the sentence clear; not seeing this, the Vulgate renders, ut declines a veritate judicii. The offence censured is the perversion of justice in giving sentence against a righteous man whose cause the judge has reason to know is just.