You Must Be Ready

^35 (A)“Stay dressed for action^[a] and ^(B)keep your lamps burning, ³⁶ and be like men who are ^(C)waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and ^(D)knocks. ^37 (E)Blessed are those servants^[b] whom the master finds ^(F)awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, ^(G)he will dress himself for service and ^(H)have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. ³⁸ If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! ^39 (I)But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour ^(J)the thief was coming, he^[c] would not have left his house to be broken into. ⁴⁰ You also must be ^(K)ready, for ^(L)the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

⁴² Therefore, ^(A)stay awake, for you do not know on what day ^(B)your Lord is coming. ^43 (C)But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night ^(D)the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴ Therefore you also must be ^(E)ready, for ^(F)the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

^3 (A)Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, ^(B)I will come ^(C)like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

⁵ And I heard the angel in charge of the waters^[a] say,

¹⁰ But ^(A)the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then ^(B)the heavens will pass away with a roar, and ^(C)the heavenly bodies^[a] will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.^[b]

² For you yourselves are fully aware that ^(A)the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

⁴ But you ^(A)are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.