New Testament in a Year

²⁰ One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, “When will the Kingdom of God begin?” Jesus replied, “The Kingdom of God isn’t ushered in with visible signs. ²¹ You won’t be able to say, ‘It has begun here in this place or there in that part of the country.’ For the Kingdom of God is within you.”^[a]

²² Later he talked again about this with his disciples. “The time is coming when you will long for me^[b] to be with you even for a single day, but I won’t be here,” he said. ²³ “Reports will reach you that I have returned and that I am in this place or that; don’t believe it or go out to look for me. ²⁴ For when I return, you will know it beyond all doubt. It will be as evident as the lightning that flashes across the skies. ²⁵ But first I must suffer terribly and be rejected by this whole nation.

²⁶ “When I return^[c] the world will be as indifferent to the things of God as the people were in Noah’s day. ²⁷ They ate and drank and married—everything just as usual right up to the day when Noah went into the ark and the Flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸ “And the world will be as it was in the days of Lot: people went about their daily business—eating and drinking, buying and selling, farming and building— ²⁹ until the morning Lot left Sodom. Then fire and brimstone rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. ³⁰ Yes, it will be ‘business as usual’ right up to the hour of my return.^[d]

³¹ “Those away from home that day must not return to pack; those in the fields must not return to town— ³² remember what happened to Lot’s wife! ³³ Whoever clings to his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life shall save it. ³⁴ That night two men will be asleep in the same room, and one will be taken away, the other left. ^35-36 Two women will be working together at household tasks; one will be taken, the other left; and so it will be with men working side by side in the fields.”

³⁷ “Lord, where will they be taken?” the disciples asked.

Jesus replied, “Where the body is, the vultures gather!”^[e]