Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

This world will come to an end

12 Then the angel said to me, ‘At that time God's great angel Michael will come. He is the leader who takes care of your people. There will be a time of great trouble. It will be worse than any trouble that has happened since God first made your nation. But many of your own people will escape from that trouble. Those are all the people whose names are written in the book.^{[a] 2} Many dead people who lie under the ground will become alive again. Some of them will receive life that continues for ever with God. But other people will receive shame that continues for ever. ³ People who are wise will shine like the bright sky. Those who help many people to do what is right will also shine brightly for ever. They will shine like the stars in the sky at night.

David wrote this prayer.

God will help me

¹¹ Every day, the priests do their work to serve God. They offer the same sacrifices to God again and again. But those sacrifices can never take away people's sins. ¹² But Christ, our special priest, offered one sacrifice to take away our sins. He did that once, for all time. After that, he sat down at God's right side to rule with him. ¹³ Since then, he waits for God to win against his enemies completely. They will become like a place for him to put his feet. ¹⁴ So, as a result of his one sacrifice, Christ has made God's people completely clean for all time.

¹⁵ God's Holy Spirit also shows us that these things are true. He says this first:^[a]

¹⁷ Then he says this:^[b]

¹⁸ So that is the way that God forgives our sins. When God has done that, we do not need to have any other sacrifice to take away our sins.

We must continue to trust God

¹⁹ So then, Christian friends, we see that Jesus died as a sacrifice on our behalf. Because of that, we may go into God's Most Holy Place. We are not afraid to do that. ²⁰ Jesus has opened a new way for us to come near to God. That way gives us life with God. It leads us through the curtain into God's Most Holy Place. Jesus opened that curtain for us when he offered his own body to God as a sacrifice.^{[a] 21} We have a great priest who rules the people of God's house. ²² So we should come near to God and we should not be afraid. But we must be honest and we must continue to trust him. He has made us clean from the dirt of our sins. Our thoughts no longer give us trouble about our sins. We have become clean. It is like he has washed our bodies with clean water.^[b]

²³ We know that we can trust God to do the things that he has promised. So we must continue to expect those things. We must tell other people that we trust God. We should not stop doing that. ²⁴ We should think about how we can help one another. We want everyone to show love to each other. We want everyone to do good things to help one another. ²⁵ Some people have stopped meeting with the group of Christians. But that is not good. We should all continue to meet together. We need to help one another to be strong and brave. That is now even more important, because the Lord's great day is coming. You know that the Lord will return soon.

Jesus talks about future events

13 Then Jesus left the temple. While he was leaving, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Teacher, look at these great buildings! The stones in the walls of God's House are really great!’

² Jesus said to him, ‘Yes, look at all these large buildings! But I tell you, enemies will completely destroy them. Not even one stone will remain on top of another stone.’

³ After that, Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives. He could look across the valley at the temple. Peter, James, John and Andrew went together to talk with him. The crowd was not there. ⁴ They said to Jesus, ‘Please tell us when all these things will happen. What will show us that they will soon happen?’

⁵ Jesus began to say to them, ‘Be careful! Some people will tell you things that are not true. Do not believe those people. ⁶ Many people will say that they have come on my behalf. They will say, “I am the Messiah!” and they will deceive many people. ⁷ You will hear about wars. And there will be reports about wars in other places. Do not be afraid. Those things must happen, but that is not yet the end of everything. ⁸ People in one country will attack the people in another country. Kings and their armies will fight against other kings and their armies. The ground will shake in many different places. In some places, people will be hungry, with no food. Those things are like the first pains that a mother has before her baby is born.