Book of Common Prayer

The letter to Philadelphia

⁷ “Write this to the angel of the church in Philadelphia. ‘These are the words of the Holy One, the True One, the one who has the key of David, who opens and nobody shuts, who shuts and nobody opens. ⁸ I know your works. Look! I have given you an open door, right in front of you, and nobody can shut it, since you have a little power; you have kept my word, and you haven’t denied my name. ⁹ Look: this is what I will do to the satan-synagogue, who call themselves Jews but who are frauds, nothing of the kind. Take note: this is what I will grant you—that I will make them come and worship before your feet, and they will know that I have loved you. ¹⁰ You have kept my word about patience, and so I will keep you from the time of trial that is going to come upon the whole world, to test out all the inhabitants of the earth. ¹¹ I am coming quickly! Hold on to what you have, so that nobody takes away your crown. ¹² Anyone who conquers, I will make them a pillar in the temple of my God. They will never go out of it again. I will write on that person the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God, and my own new name. ¹³ Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches.’

The desolating sacrilege

¹⁵ “So when you see ‘the sacrilege that desolates,’ as Daniel the prophet put it, ‘standing in the holy place’ (the reader should understand), ¹⁶ then those who are in Judaea should take to their heels and run to the mountains. ¹⁷ If you’re up on your roof, don’t go down into the house to get things out. ¹⁸ If you’re in the fields, don’t go back to pick up your cloak. ¹⁹ It’s going to be terrible for pregnant and nursing women during those days. ²⁰ Pray that it won’t be winter when you have to run away, or for that matter a sabbath. ²¹ Yes: there’s going to be such great suffering then as has never been since the start of the world until now—no, and won’t ever be again. ²² And if those days had not been shortened, nobody at all would have been rescued. But for the sake of God’s chosen ones those days will be shortened.

²³ “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘Look! There he is!’ don’t believe them. ²⁴ False messiahs will arise, you see, and false prophets too. They will provide great signs and portents, so as to deceive even God’s chosen ones, if that were possible. ²⁵ Remember, I’m telling you this beforehand!

²⁶ “So if someone says to you, ‘Look! He’s out in the wilderness,’ don’t go out. If they say, ‘Look, he’s in the inner room,’ don’t believe them. ²⁷ You see, the royal appearing of the son of man will be like the lightning that comes from the East and flashes across to the West. ²⁸ Where the carcass is, there the vultures will gather.”

The coming of the son of man

²⁹ “Straight away,” Jesus continued, “after the suffering that those days will bring,

³⁰ “And then the sign of the son of man will appear in heaven; then all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see ‘the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven’ with power and great glory. ³¹ He will send off his messengers with a great trumpet-blast, and they will collect his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.