Mark 13:14–27

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.