HQL ERROR: Path expected for join

You need to name the entity that holds the association to User. For example,

... INNER JOIN ug.user u ...

That's the "path" the error message is complaining about -- path from UserGroup to User entity.

Hibernate relies on declarative JOINs, for which the join condition is declared in the mapping metadata. This is why it is impossible to construct the native SQL query without having the path.

select u from UserGroup ug inner join ug.user u 
where ug.group_id = :groupId 
order by u.lastname

As a named query:

@NamedQuery(
  name = "User.findByGroupId",
  query =
    "SELECT u FROM UserGroup ug " +
    "INNER JOIN ug.user u WHERE ug.group_id = :groupId ORDER BY u.lastname"
)

Use paths in the HQL statement, from one entity to the other. See the Hibernate documentation on HQL and joins for details.