Book of Common Prayer

Children of light

5 Now when it comes to specific times and dates, my dear family, you don’t need to have anyone write to you. ² You yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a midnight robber. ³ When people say, “Peace and security!” then swift ruin will arrive at their doorstep, like the pains that come over a woman in labor, and they won’t have a chance to escape.

⁴ But as for you, my dear family—you are not in darkness. That day won’t surprise you like a robber. ⁵ You are all children of light, children of the day! We don’t belong to the night, or to darkness. ⁶ So, then, let’s not go to sleep, like the others, but let’s keep awake and stay sober.

⁷ People who sleep, you see, sleep at night. People who get drunk get drunk at night. ⁸ But we daytime people should be self-controlled, clothing ourselves with the breastplate of faith and love, and with the helmet of the hope of salvation; ⁹ because the road on which God has placed us leads, not to fury, but to gaining salvation, through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. ¹⁰ He died for us, so that whether we stay awake or go to sleep we should live together with him. ¹¹ So strengthen one another, and build each other up, just as you are doing.

The distress of Jerusalem predicted

²⁰ “But,” continued Jesus, “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that her time of desolation has arrived. ²¹ Then people in Judaea should run off to the hills, people in Jerusalem itself should get out as fast as they can, and people in the countryside shouldn’t go back into the city. ²² Those will be the days of severe judgment, which will fulfill all the biblical warnings. ²³ Woe betide pregnant women, and nursing mothers, in those days! There is going to be huge distress on the earth, and divine anger against this people. ²⁴ The hungry sword will eat them up. They will be taken as prisoners to every nation; and Jerusalem will be trampled by the pagans, until the times of the pagans are done.

²⁵ “There will be signs in the sun, the moon and the stars. On earth the nations will be in distress and confusion because of the roaring and swelling of the sea and its waves. ²⁶ People will faint from fear, and from imagining all that’s going to happen to the world. The powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷ Then they will see ‘the son of man coming on a cloud’ with power and great majesty. ²⁸ When all these things start to happen, stand up and lift up your heads, because the time has come for you to be redeemed.”