Jesus the Cause of Division

⁴⁹ “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze!

The Great Day of the Lord

4 ^[a]See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.^(A)

¹⁰ Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.^(A)

¹¹ “I baptize you with^[a] water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with^[b] the Holy Spirit and fire.^{(B) 12} His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”^(C)

⁵¹ Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!^{(A) 52} From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;

² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like washers’ soap;^{(A) 3} he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.^[a](B)

³⁰ I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.^{(A) 31} The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.^(B)

¹⁷ So the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to testify.^{[a] 18} It was also because they heard that he had performed this sign that the crowd went to meet him. ¹⁹ The Pharisees then said to one another, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him!”^(A)

⁴ We^[a] must work the works of him who sent me^[b] while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.^(A)