Book of Common Prayer

¹² As I looked, he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake, the sun turned black like sackcloth, the whole moon became like blood, ¹³ and the stars were falling from heaven onto the earth as when a fig tree, shaken by a strong wind, drops its late fruit. ¹⁴ The heaven disappeared like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. ¹⁵ The kings of the earth, the leading courtiers, the generals, the rich, the power-brokers, and everyone, slave and free, all hid themselves among the caves and rocks of the mountains. ¹⁶ “Fall upon us!” they were saying to the mountains and the rocks. “Hide us from the face of the One who sits on the throne, and from the anger of the lamb! ¹⁷ The great day of their anger has come, and who can stand upright?”

Sealing God’s people

7 After this I saw four angels, standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to stop any wind from blowing on earth, or on the sea, or on any tree. ² And I saw another angel coming up from the east, holding the seal of the living God. He shouted out in a loud voice to the four angels who had responsibility for harming the earth and the sea. ³ “Don’t harm the earth just yet,” he shouted, “or the sea, or the trees. Don’t do it until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”

⁴ I heard the number of the people who were sealed: it was a hundred and forty-four thousand who were sealed from all the tribes of the children of Israel.

The parable of the weeds

²⁴ He put another parable to them.

“The kingdom of heaven,” he said, “is like this! Once upon a time a man sowed good seed in his field. ²⁵ While the workers were asleep, his enemy came and sowed weeds in among the wheat, and went away. ²⁶ When the crop came up and produced wheat, then the weeds appeared as well.

²⁷ “So the farmer’s servants came to him.

“ ‘Master,’ they said, ‘didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’

²⁸ “ ‘This is the work of an enemy,’ he replied.

“ ‘So,’ the servants said to him, ‘do you want us to go and pull them up?’

²⁹ “ ‘No,’ he replied. ‘If you do that you’ll probably pull up the wheat as well, while you’re collecting the weeds. ³⁰ Let them both grow together until the harvest. Then, when it’s time for harvest, I will give the reapers this instruction: First gather the weeds and tie them up in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.’ ”