Mark 13:14–14:31

The Awful Horror

^14*“You will see ‘The Awful Horror’ standing in the place where he should not be.” (Note to the reader: be sure to understand what this means!) “Then those who are in Judea must run away to the hills. ^15*Someone who is on the roof of his house must not lose time by going down into the house to get anything to take with him. ^16*Someone who is in the field must not go back to the house for his cloak. ¹⁷How terrible it will be in those days for women who are pregnant and for mothers with little babies! ¹⁸Pray to God that these things will not happen in the winter! ^19*For the trouble of those days will be far worse than any the world has ever known from the very beginning when God created the world until the present time. Nor will there ever be anything like it again. ²⁰But the Lord has reduced the number of those days; if he had not, nobody would survive. For the sake of his chosen people, however, he has reduced those days.

²¹“Then, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’—do not believe him. ²²For false Messiahs and false prophets will appear. They will perform miracles and wonders in order to deceive even God’s chosen people, if possible. ²³Be on your guard! I have told you everything before the time comes.

The Coming of the Son of Man

^24*“In the days after that time of trouble the sun will grow dark, the moon will no longer shine, ^25*the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in space will be driven from their courses. ^26*Then the Son of Man will appear, coming in the clouds with great power and glory. ²⁷He will send the angels out to the four corners of the earth to gather God’s chosen people from one end of the world to the other.

The Lesson of the Fig-Tree

²⁸“Let the fig tree teach you a lesson. When its branches become green and tender and it starts putting out leaves, you know that summer is near. ²⁹In the same way, when you see these things happening, you will know that the time is near, ready to begin.^{u 30}Remember that all these things will happen before the people now living have all died. ³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

No One Knows the Date or Hour

^32*“No one knows, however, when that day or hour will come—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son; only the Father knows. ³³Be on watch, be alert, for you do not know when the time will come. ^34*It will be like a man who goes away from home on a journey and leaves his servants in charge, after giving to each one his own work to do and after telling the doorkeeper to keep watch. ³⁵Be on guard, then, because you do not know when the master of the house is coming—it might be in the evening or at midnight or before dawn or at sunrise. ³⁶If he comes suddenly, he must not find you asleep. ³⁷What I say to you, then, I say to all: watch!”

The Plot against Jesus

14^*It was now two days before the Festival of Passover and Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the teachers of the Law were looking for a way to arrest Jesus secretly and put him to death. ²“We must not do it during the festival,” they said, “or the people might riot.”

Jesus Is Anointed at Bethany

^3*Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon, a man who had suffered from a dreaded skin disease. While Jesus was eating, a woman came in with an alabaster jar full of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head. ⁴Some of the people there became angry and said to one another, “What was the use of wasting the perfume? ⁵It could have been sold for more than three hundred silver coins^v and the money given to the poor!” And they criticized her harshly.

⁶But Jesus said, “Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a fine and beautiful thing for me. ^7*You will always have poor people with you, and any time you want to, you can help them. But you will not always have me. ⁸She did what she could; she poured perfume on my body to prepare it ahead of time for burial. ⁹Now, I assure you that wherever the gospel is preached all over the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus

¹⁰Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went off to the chief priests in order to betray Jesus to them. ¹¹They were pleased to hear what he had to say, and promised to give him money. So Judas started looking for a good chance to hand Jesus over to them.

Jesus Eats the Passover Meal with His Disciples

¹²On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the day the lambs for the Passover meal were killed, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and get the Passover meal ready for you?”

¹³Then Jesus sent two of them with these instructions: “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him ¹⁴to the house he enters, and say to the owner of the house: ‘The Teacher says, Where is the room where my disciples and I will eat the Passover meal?’ ¹⁵Then he will show you a large upstairs room, prepared and furnished, where you will get everything ready for us.”

¹⁶The disciples left, went to the city, and found everything just as Jesus had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.

¹⁷When it was evening, Jesus came with the twelve disciples. ^18*While they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you that one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”

¹⁹The disciples were upset and began to ask him, one after the other, “Surely you don’t mean me, do you?”

²⁰Jesus answered, “It will be one of you twelve, one who dips his bread in the dish with me. ²¹The Son of Man will die as the Scriptures say he will; but how terrible for that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would have been better for that man if he had never been born!”

The Lord’s Supper

²²While they were eating, Jesus took a piece of bread, gave a prayer of thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. “Take it,” he said, “this is my body.”

²³Then he took a cup, gave thanks to God, and handed it to them; and they all drank from it. ^24*Jesus said, “This is my blood which is poured out for many, my blood which seals God’s covenant. ²⁵I tell you, I will never again drink this wine until the day I drink the new wine in the Kingdom of God.”

²⁶Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.

Jesus Predicts Peter’s Denial

^27*Jesus said to them, “All of you will run away and leave me, for the scripture says, ‘God will kill the shepherd, and the sheep will all be scattered.’ ^28*But after I am raised to life, I will go to Galilee ahead of you.”

²⁹Peter answered, “I will never leave you, even though all the rest do!”

³⁰Jesus said to Peter, “I tell you that before the cock crows twice tonight, you will say three times that you do not know me.”

³¹Peter answered even more strongly, “I will never say that, even if I have to die with you!” And all the other disciples said the same thing.