Book of Common Prayer
13 Listen to me! You say, `Today or tomorrow we will go to that town. We will stay there a year. We will buy and sell and get rich.' But you do not know what will happen to you tomorrow.
14 What is your life like? It is like a cloud. It is here for a little while and then it is gone.
15 You should say `If the Lord wants to do it, we will live and do this or that.'
16 But now you talk about the big things you will do. All that kind of talk is wrong!
17 But if a person knows what he should do and he does not do it, he has done something wrong.
5 Rich people, listen to me! Cry loud and long because of the troubles you will have.
2 Your things are spoiled. Bugs have eaten your clothes.
3 Your gold and silver are all spoiled. The wrong in them will prove that you have done wrong. The wrong will burn you up like fire. You have kept all these things and now time is almost ended.
4 Listen! Men worked in your fields to cut your grain and you did not pay them! That money shouts against you. The men who cut your harvest have called out to the Lord who has power and he has heard them.
5 You have had a good time on earth. You have done anything you wanted to do. Your lives are full of everything. Like a fat animal, you will soon be killed.
6 You have punished good people. You have killed them. And they do not stop you.
20 The Pharisees asked Jesus, `When will the kingdom of God come?' He answered them, `You cannot see the kingdom of God when it comes.
21 People will not be able to say, "Look, here it is!" or "There it is! That is because the kingdom of God is inside you.'
22 Jesus said to his disciples, `The time will come when you will want to see one of the days of the Son of Man. But you will not see it.
23 People will say to you, "Look! Here he is!" or "Look! There he is!" But do not go out or follow them.
24 When lightning comes, it lights up the whole sky. It will be like that on the day when the Son of Man comes.
25 But first he will have much trouble. The people who are living now will not believe in him.
26 `The way it was in the time of Noah is the way it will be in the time of the Son of Man.
27 People ate and drank. They married and gave their daughters to be married. All this went on until the day when Noah went into his house built on a boat. Then there was much water and all the people outside the boat died.
28 `It was the same way in the time of Lot. People ate and drank. They bought and sold. They planted and built.
29 Then one day Lot went out of the city of Sodom. Then on that day fire and burning rock came down from the sky and killed all the people.
30 `That is the way it will be on the day when the Son of Man is seen.
31 On that day a man will be at the top of his house, and his things will be below. But he must not go down to get his things. In the same way a man will be in the field, but he must not go back home.
32 Remember what happened to Lot's wife.
33 Anyone who wants to keep his life will lose it. And anyone who gives up his life will keep it.
34 `I tell you, on that night two people may be in one bed. One will be taken away and the other will be left.
35 Two women will be making flour together. One woman will be taken away and the other woman will be left.
36 Two men will be in a field. One man will be taken away and the other man will be left.'
37 They asked him, `Where will this be, Lord?' He said, `The big birds that eat meat will go to the place where the dead body is.'
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