Matthew 24
The chapter in full, then the passages inside it that are worth stopping on — what each one claims, what the Greek or Hebrew shows, and how the reading is arrived at.
Matthew 24 WEB
- 1 Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple.
- 2 But he answered them, "You see all of these things, don't you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down."
- 3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?"
- 4 Jesus answered them, "Be careful that no one leads you astray.
- 5 For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will lead many astray.
- 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren't troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet.
- 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places.
- 8 But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.
- 9 "Then they will deliver you up to oppression and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name's sake.
- 10 Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another.
- 11 Many false prophets will arise and will lead many astray.
- 12 Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.
- 13 But he who endures to the end will be saved.
- 14 This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.
- 15 "When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
- 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
- 17 Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house.
- 18 Let him who is in the field not return back to get his clothes.
- 19 But woe to those who are with child and to nursing mothers in those days!
- 20 Pray that your flight will not be in the winter nor on a Sabbath,
- 21 for then there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.
- 22 Unless those days had been shortened, no flesh would have been saved. But for the sake of the chosen ones, those days will be shortened.
- 23 "Then if any man tells you, 'Behold, here is the Christ!' or, 'There!' don't believe it.
- 24 For false christs and false prophets will arise, and they will show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.
- 25 "Behold, I have told you beforehand.
- 26 "If therefore they tell you, 'Behold, he is in the wilderness,' don't go out; or 'Behold, he is in the inner rooms,' don't believe it.
- 27 For as the lightning flashes from the east, and is seen even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
- 28 For wherever the carcass is, that is where the vultures gather together.
- 29 "But immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;
- 30 and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.
- 31 He will send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
- 32 "Now from the fig tree learn this parable: When its branch has now become tender and produces its leaves, you know that the summer is near.
- 33 Even so you also, when you see all these things, know that he is near, even at the doors.
- 34 Most certainly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things are accomplished.
- 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
- 36 "But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
- 37 As the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
- 38 For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ship,
- 39 and they didn't know until the flood came and took them all away, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
- 40 Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and one will be left.
- 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and one will be left.
- 42 Watch therefore, for you don't know in what hour your Lord comes.
- 43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.
- 44 Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don't expect, the Son of Man will come.
- 45 "Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season?
- 46 Blessed is that servant whom his lord finds doing so when he comes.
- 47 Most certainly I tell you that he will set him over all that he has.
- 48 But if that evil servant should say in his heart, 'My lord is delaying his coming,'
- 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunkards,
- 50 the lord of that servant will come in a day when he doesn't expect it and in an hour when he doesn't know it,
- 51 and will cut him in pieces and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.
Matthew 24 opens the Olivet Discourse, Jesus' longest teaching on the future, given privately to the disciples on the Mount of Olives across the valley from Jerusalem. It follows directly on his lament over the city and pronouncement of judgment on the temple in chapter 23, and it answers a compound question the disciples never quite separate: when will the temple fall, and when will the age end? That double question is the key to nearly every difficulty in the chapter.
24:2 Not one stone left on another
Jesus' disciples have just admired the temple's buildings (24:1); his answer is blunt: "there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down" (24:2). This is not vague apocalyptic color. It is a specific prediction about a specific building, and it was fulfilled: Roman forces under Titus destroyed the temple in AD 70, less than forty years after Jesus spoke. Luke's parallel makes the political shape of the judgment explicit — "they will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn't know the time of your visitation" (Luke 19:44) — tying the destruction to Jerusalem's rejection of Jesus rather than to some timeless principle. The prophetic background matters too: Micah had already said Jerusalem's temple mount would become "heaps of rubble... like the high places of a forest" (Micah 3:12), and Jeremiah 26:18 recalls that same oracle as precedent — God had razed his own house before. Jesus stands in that line, not outside it.
24:3 "What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?"
The disciples ask one question with two parts they assume are the same event: "when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?" (24:3). Almost every dispute over Matthew 24 traces back to whether Jesus keeps their assumption or corrects it. The traditional and still most defensible reading (held from the early church through most historic commentary) is that Jesus answers both, but distinguishes them as he goes — verses 4-35 largely concern the fall of Jerusalem within that generation, and verses 36 onward turn to his final coming, of which no one, "not even the angels of heaven," has the date (24:36). A minority of readers collapse the whole chapter into either one referent or the other — all first-century, or all end-of-history — but the text itself signals the seam at verse 36, where the tone shifts from datable historical catastrophe to genuine unknowing.
24:15 "The abomination of desolation... let the reader understand"
Jesus tells the disciples that when they "see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place... then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains" (24:15-16). The parenthetical "let the reader understand" (ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω) is Jesus' own signal that this is coded language requiring discernment, likely pointing to some act of sacrilege or military desecration in the temple precincts — many early readers connected it to the Roman standards and altars set up in the temple during the siege of AD 70. The instructions that follow are strikingly practical and local, not cosmic: flee without going back for a coat (24:17-18), pray it isn't winter or Sabbath (24:20), because "then there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world" (24:21). This hyperbolic severity — matched by contemporary accounts of the siege of Jerusalem — fits a real historical catastrophe better than it fits a single global end-time event, though some readers hold this passage as also foreshadowing a future, worse tribulation. The chapter's own logic favors the former as the primary sense, without denying a typological "already/not yet" pattern common in prophecy.
24:29-31 The sun darkened, the Son of Man coming on the clouds
Immediately after describes cosmic upheaval — sun darkened, stars falling, "the sign of the Son of Man" appearing, and the angels gathering the elect (24:29-31). Read wholly literally and detached from context, this looks like the final end. But this is standard prophetic idiom for divine judgment on a nation or city (the sun-and-stars language echoes oracles against Babylon and Egypt in the Old Testament), and Jesus ties it directly to "this generation" in the next breath (24:34). The tension between "immediately after" (24:29) and the plain historical fact that final judgment has not yet come is real, and interpreters divide here: some see verses 29-31 as figurative language for Jerusalem's fall and the vindication of Jesus (the Son of Man "coming" in judgment, as in Daniel 7, not necessarily his second advent); others take it as a genuine telescoping where near and far judgments are seen together, the way prophets often speak of near and distant events in a single sweep without marking the gap. What the text does not support is treating this passage as a straightforward newspaper forecast severed from its first hearers.
24:34-36 "This generation will not pass away" / "no one knows... but my Father only"
"This generation will not pass away until all these things are accomplished" (24:34) is the chapter's hinge and its hardest verse for readers who want the whole discourse to be about a distant future. γενεά standardly means the people living at that time, and everything up through verse 34 — the temple's fall, the flight from Judea, the abomination of desolation — did happen within the lifetime of that generation, in AD 70. Then verse 36 turns: "no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only." The shift from confident timing to explicit ignorance is deliberate, and Acts 1:7 later confirms the same limit — the Father alone sets the times, and it is not for the disciples to know them. Readers who try to smooth this into a single uninterrupted timeline usually end up either forcing "generation" to mean "race" or "epoch" against its ordinary sense, or pushing the temple's fall two thousand years into the future against the plain historical record. The chapter's own seam at verse 36 is the more honest reading: near judgment, dated; final coming, deliberately not.
What the chapter asks
Matthew 24 refuses the reader two comfortable postures at once: total certainty about dates and total indifference about readiness. Jesus names deceivers, wars, and disasters and says plainly they are not yet the end (24:6) — a standing warning against every generation's impulse to read its own crises as final. But the uncertainty about the hour is not license for delay; it is the ground for vigilance: "Watch therefore, for you don't know in what hour your Lord comes" (24:42), and the servant who exploits the master's absence is judged, not excused, by the delay (24:48-51). The chapter presses toward faithfulness under an unknown deadline rather than speculation about a knowable one — a claim that unsettles both the calendar-setters and the sleepwalkers.
The verses this turns on
Jesus went out from the temple, and was going on his way. His disciples came to him to show him the buildings of the temple.discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
Καὶ ἐξελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱεροῦ ἐπορεύετο, καὶ προσῆλθον οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἐπιδεῖξαι αὐτῷ τὰς οἰκοδομὰς τοῦ ἱεροῦ.
- Καὶ καί conjunction G2532
- ἐξελθὼν ἐξέρχομαι verb · aorist active participle, nominative singular masculine G1831
- ὁ ὁ article · nominative singular masculine G3588
- Ἰησοῦς Ἰησοῦς noun · nominative singular masculine G2424
- ἀπὸ ἀπό preposition G575
- τοῦ ὁ article · genitive singular neuter G3588
- ἱεροῦ ἱερός noun · genitive singular neuter G2411
- ἐπορεύετο, πορεύομαι verb · imperfect middle or passive deponent indicative, 3rd person singular G4198
- καὶ καί conjunction G2532
- προσῆλθον προσέρχομαι verb · aorist active indicative, 3rd person plural G4334
- οἱ ὁ article · nominative plural masculine G3588
- μαθηταὶ μαθητής noun · nominative plural masculine G3101
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 5
- Mark 13:1 As he went out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Teacher, see what kind of stones and what kind of buildings!"
- Luke 21:5 As some were talking about the temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts, he said,
- Ezekiel 8:6 He said to me, "Son of man, do you see what they do? Even the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? But you will again see yet other great abominations."
- Jeremiah 6:8 Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land."
- Matthew 23:39 For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"
But he answered them, "You see all of these things, don't you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down."discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Οὐ βλέπετε ταῦτα πάντα; ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ μὴ ἀφεθῇ ὧδε λίθος ἐπὶ λίθον ὃς οὐ καταλυθήσεται.
- ὁ ὁ article · nominative singular masculine G3588
- δὲ δέ conjunction G1161
- ἀποκριθεὶς ἀποκρίνομαι verb · aorist passive deponent participle, nominative singular masculine G611
- εἶπεν λέγω verb · aorist active indicative, 3rd person singular G3004
- αὐτοῖς αὐτός personal pronoun · dative plural masculine G846
- Οὐ οὐ particle · nominative G3756
- βλέπετε βλέπω verb · present active indicative, 2nd person plural G991
- ταῦτα οὗτος demonstrative pronoun · accusative plural neuter G3778
- πάντα; πᾶς adjective · accusative plural neuter G3956
- ἀμὴν ἀμήν Hebrew transliteration G281
- λέγω λέγω verb · present active indicative, 1st person singular G3004
- ὑμῖν, σύ personal pronoun G4771
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 5
- Luke 19:44 and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn't know the time of your visitation."
- Jeremiah 26:18 "Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, 'Yahweh of Armies says: "'Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.'
- Micah 3:12 Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
- Ezekiel 7:20 As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and their detestable things therein. Therefore I have made it to them as an unclean thing.
- Daniel 9:26 After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined.
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?"discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
Καθημένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τοῦ ὄρους τῶν Ἐλαιῶν προσῆλθον αὐτῷ οἱ μαθηταὶ κατ’ ἰδίαν λέγοντες Εἰπὲ ἡμῖν, πότε ταῦτα ἔσται, καὶ τί τὸ σημεῖον τῆς σῆς παρουσίας καὶ συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος;
- Καθημένου κάθημαι verb · present middle or passive deponent participle, genitive singular masculine G2521
- δὲ δέ conjunction G1161
- αὐτοῦ αὐτός personal pronoun · genitive singular masculine G846
- ἐπὶ ἐπί preposition G1909
- τοῦ ὁ article · genitive singular neuter G3588
- ὄρους ὄρος noun · genitive singular neuter G3735
- τῶν ὁ article · genitive plural feminine G3588
- Ἐλαιῶν ἐλαία noun · genitive plural feminine G1636
- προσῆλθον προσέρχομαι verb · aorist active indicative, 3rd person plural G4334
- αὐτῷ αὐτός personal pronoun · dative singular masculine G846
- οἱ ὁ article · nominative plural masculine G3588
- μαθηταὶ μαθητής noun · nominative plural masculine G3101
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 5
- Mark 13:3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,
- Acts 1:7 He said to them, "It isn't for you to know times or seasons which the Father has set within his own authority.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you.
- Matthew 13:49 So it will be in the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked from among the righteous,
- Matthew 24:37 As the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you aren't troubled, for all this must happen, but the end is not yet.discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
μελλήσετε δὲ ἀκούειν πολέμους καὶ ἀκοὰς πολέμων· ὁρᾶτε, μὴ θροεῖσθε· δεῖ γὰρ γενέσθαι, ἀλλ’ οὔπω ἐστὶν τὸ τέλος.
- μελλήσετε μέλλω verb · future active indicative, 2nd person plural G3195
- δὲ δέ conjunction G1161
- ἀκούειν ἀκούω verb · present active infinitive G191
- πολέμους πόλεμος noun · accusative plural masculine G4171
- καὶ καί conjunction G2532
- ἀκοὰς ἀκοή noun · accusative plural feminine G189
- πολέμων· πόλεμος noun · genitive plural masculine G4171
- ὁρᾶτε, ὁράω verb · present active imperative, 2nd person plural G3708
- μὴ μή particle · nominative G3361
- θροεῖσθε· θροέω verb · present middle or passive imperative, 2nd person plural G2360
- δεῖ δεῖ verb · present active indicative, 3rd person singular G1163
- γὰρ γάρ conjunction G1063
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 5
- Mark 13:7 "When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don't be troubled. For those must happen, but the end is not yet.
- Luke 21:9 When you hear of wars and disturbances, don't be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end won't come immediately."
- Isaiah 8:12 "Don't call a conspiracy all that this people call a conspiracy. Don't fear their threats or be terrorized.
- 1 Peter 3:14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. "Don't fear what they fear, neither be troubled."
- John 14:1 "Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.
"When, therefore, you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
Ὅταν οὖν ἴδητε τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Δανιὴλ τοῦ προφήτου ἑστὸς ἐν τόπῳ ἁγίῳ, ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω,
- Ὅταν ὅταν conjunction G3752
- οὖν οὖν conjunction G3767
- ἴδητε ὁράω verb · aorist active subjunctive, 2nd person plural G3708
- τὸ ὁ article · accusative singular neuter G3588
- βδέλυγμα βδέλυγμα noun · accusative singular neuter G946
- τῆς ὁ article · genitive singular feminine G3588
- ἐρημώσεως ἐρήμωσις noun · genitive singular feminine G2050
- τὸ ὁ article · accusative singular neuter G3588
- ῥηθὲν εἶπον verb · aorist passive participle, accusative singular neuter G2046
- διὰ διά preposition G1223
- Δανιὴλ Δανιήλ proper noun (indeclinable) G1158
- τοῦ ὁ article · genitive singular masculine G3588
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 5
- Daniel 9:27 He will make a firm covenant with many for one week. In the middle of the week he will cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease. On the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate; and even to the decreed full end, wrath will be poured out on the desolate."
- Daniel 12:11 "From the time that the continual burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate set up, there will be one thousand two hundred ninety days.
- Mark 13:14 "But when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not" (let the reader understand), "then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains,
- Luke 21:20 "But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand.
- Daniel 11:31 "Forces from him will profane the sanctuary, even the fortress, and will take away the continual burnt offering. Then they will set up the abomination that makes desolate.
Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house.discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ δώματος μὴ καταβάτω ἆραι τὰ ἐκ τῆς οἰκίας αὐτοῦ,
- ὁ ὁ article · nominative singular masculine G3588
- ἐπὶ ἐπί preposition G1909
- τοῦ ὁ article · genitive singular neuter G3588
- δώματος δῶμα noun · genitive singular neuter G1430
- μὴ μή particle · nominative G3361
- καταβάτω καταβαίνω verb · aorist active imperative, 3rd person singular G2597
- ἆραι αἴρω verb · aorist active infinitive G142
- τὰ ὁ article · accusative plural neuter G3588
- ἐκ ἐκ preposition G1537
- τῆς ὁ article · genitive singular feminine G3588
- οἰκίας οἰκία noun · genitive singular feminine G3614
- αὐτοῦ, αὐτός personal pronoun · genitive singular masculine G846
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 5
- Luke 17:31 In that day, he who will be on the housetop and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back.
- Mark 13:15 and let him who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter in, to take anything out of his house.
- Matthew 10:27 What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in the ear, proclaim on the housetops.
- Acts 10:9 Now on the next day as they were on their journey and got close to the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray at about noon.
- Luke 12:3 Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light. What you have spoken in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
Pray that your flight will not be in the winter nor on a Sabbath,discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
προσεύχεσθε δὲ ἵνα μὴ γένηται ἡ φυγὴ ὑμῶν χειμῶνος μηδὲ σαββάτῳ·
- προσεύχεσθε προσεύχομαι verb · present middle or passive deponent imperative, 2nd person plural G4336
- δὲ δέ conjunction G1161
- ἵνα ἵνα conjunction G2443
- μὴ μή particle · nominative G3361
- γένηται γίνομαι verb · aorist middle deponent subjunctive, 3rd person singular G1096
- ἡ ὁ article · nominative singular feminine G3588
- φυγὴ φυγή noun · nominative singular feminine G5437
- ὑμῶν σύ personal pronoun G4771
- χειμῶνος χειμών noun · genitive singular masculine G5494
- μηδὲ μηδέ conjunction · nominative G3366
- σαββάτῳ· σάββατον noun · dative singular neuter G4521
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 2
- Exodus 16:29 Behold, because Yahweh has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Everyone stay in his place. Let no one go out of his place on the seventh day."
- Acts 1:12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mountain called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away.
for then there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.discussed above
Greek Nestle 1904
ἔσται γὰρ τότε θλῖψις μεγάλη, οἵα οὐ γέγονεν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς κόσμου ἕως τοῦ νῦν οὐδ’ οὐ μὴ γένηται.
- ἔσται εἰμί verb · future middle deponent indicative, 3rd person singular G1510
- γὰρ γάρ conjunction G1063
- τότε τότε adverb G5119
- θλῖψις θλῖψις noun · nominative singular feminine G2347
- μεγάλη, μέγας adjective · nominative singular feminine G3173
- οἵα οἷος relative pronoun · nominative singular feminine G3634
- οὐ οὐ particle · nominative G3756
- γέγονεν γίνομαι verb · perfect active indicative, 3rd person singular G1096
- ἀπ’ ἀπό preposition G575
- ἀρχῆς ἀρχή noun · genitive singular feminine G746
- κόσμου κόσμος noun · genitive singular masculine G2889
- ἕως ἕως adverb G2193
Punctuation is editorial — the manuscripts carry none.
See also 5
- Daniel 12:1 "At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.
- Joel 2:2 A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and strong people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many generations.
- Malachi 4:1 "For behold, the day comes, burning like a furnace, when all the proud and all who work wickedness will be stubble. The day that comes will burn them up," says Yahweh of Armies, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
- Zechariah 14:2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.
- Luke 19:43 For the days will come on you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side,
From the interpretive tradition
Heaven is important, but it's not the end of the world.