Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

^23-28 “If anyone says to you then, ‘Look, here is Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ don’t believe it. False christs and false prophets are going to appear and will produce great signs and wonders to mislead, if it were possible, even God’s own people. Listen, I am warning you. So that if people say to you, ‘There he is, in the desert!’ you are not to go out there. If they say, ‘Here he is, in this inner room!’ don’t believe it. For as lightning flashes across from east to west so will the Son of Man’s coming be. ‘Wherever there is a dead body, there the vultures will flock.’

At the end of time the Son of Man will return

^29-31 “Immediately after the misery of those days ‘the sun will be darkened, the moon will fail to give her light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken’. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will wring their hands as they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky in power and great splendour. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet-call and they will gather his chosen from the four winds—from one end of the heavens to the other.

^32-41 “Learn what the fig-tree can teach you. As soon as its branches grow full of sap and produce leaves you know that summer is near. So when you see all these things happening you may know that he is near, at your very door! Believe me, this generation will not disappear till all this has taken place. Earth and sky will pass away, but my words will never pass away! But about that actual day and time no one knows—not even the angels of Heaven, nor the Son, only the Father. For just as life went on in the days of Noah so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. In those days before the flood people were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage until the very day that Noah went into the ark, and knew nothing about the flood until it came and destroyed them all. So will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left behind. Two women will be grinding at the hand-mill; one is taken and one is left behind.