Jesus Warns About the Future^(A)

13 Jesus was leaving the Temple area. One of his followers said to him, “Teacher, look how big those stones are! What beautiful buildings!”

² Jesus said, “Do you see these great buildings? They will all be destroyed. Every stone will be thrown down to the ground. Not one stone will be left on another.”

³ Later, Jesus was sitting at a place on the Mount of Olives. He was alone with Peter, James, John, and Andrew. They could all see the Temple, and they said to Jesus, ⁴ “Tell us when these things will happen. And what will show us it is time for them to happen?”

⁵ Jesus said to them, “Be careful! Don’t let anyone fool you. ⁶ Many people will come and use my name. They will say, ‘I am the Messiah,^[a]’ and they will fool many people. ⁷ You will hear about wars that are being fought. And you will hear stories about other wars beginning. But don’t be afraid. These things must happen before the end comes. ⁸ Nations will fight against other nations. Kingdoms will fight against other kingdoms. There will be times when there is no food for people to eat. And there will be earthquakes in different places. These things are only the beginning of troubles, like the first pains of a woman giving birth.

⁹ “You must be careful! There are people who will arrest you and take you to be judged for being my followers. They will beat you in their synagogues. You will be forced to stand before kings and governors. You will tell them about me. ¹⁰ Before the end comes, the Good News must be told to all nations. ¹¹ Even when you are arrested and put on trial, don’t worry about what you will say. Say whatever God tells you at the time. It will not really be you speaking. It will be the Holy Spirit.

¹² “Brothers will turn against their own brothers and hand them over to be killed. Fathers will hand over their own children to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and have them killed. ¹³ All people will hate you because you follow me. But those who remain faithful to the end will be saved.

¹⁴ “You will see ‘the terrible thing that causes destruction.’^[b] You will see this thing standing in the place where it should not be.” (Reader, I trust you understand what this means.) “Everyone in Judea at that time should run away to the mountains. ¹⁵ They should run away without wasting time to stop for anything. If someone is on the roof of their house, they must not go down to take things out of the house. ¹⁶ If someone is in the field, they must not go back to get a coat.

¹⁷ “During that time it will be hard for women who are pregnant or have small babies. ¹⁸ Pray that these things will not happen in winter, ¹⁹ because those days will be full of trouble. There will be more trouble than has ever happened since the beginning, when God made the world. And nothing that bad will ever happen again. ²⁰ But the Lord has decided to make that terrible time short. If it were not made short, no one could survive. But the Lord will make that time short to help the special people he has chosen.