Amos 4:12

²For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. ³For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape. ⁴But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.

¹Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members? ²You lust, and don’t have. You murder and covet, and can’t obtain. You fight and make war. You don’t have, because you don’t ask. ³You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. ⁴You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously”? ⁶But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”⁷Be subject therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake. Break them in pieces on the head of all of them. I will kill the last of them with the sword. Not one of them will flee away. Not one of them will escape. ²Though they dig into Sheol,^[+] there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down. ³Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out from there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. ⁴Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good.

³²“But of that day or that hour no one knows—not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³Watch, keep alert, and pray; for you don’t know when the time is.

³⁴“It is like a man traveling to another country, having left his house and given authority to his servants, and to each one his work, and also commanded the doorkeeper to keep watch. ³⁵Watch therefore, for you don’t know when the lord of the house is coming—whether at evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning; ³⁶lest, coming suddenly, he might find you sleeping. ³⁷What I tell you, I tell all: Watch!”

⁵You have not gone up into the gaps or built up the wall for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in the LORD’s day.

³Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”

⁴For the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live; ⁵but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing. ⁶Seek the LORD, and you will live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel. ⁷You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth! ⁸Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is his name, ⁹who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress. ¹⁰They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly. ¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take taxes from him of wheat, you have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. ¹²For I know how many are your offenses, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn away the needy in the courts. ¹³Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. ¹⁴Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say. ¹⁵Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that the LORD, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

^3[+] He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow put in more than all of them, ⁴for all these put in gifts for God from their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, put in all that she had to live on.”

⁵As some were talking about the temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts, he said, ⁶“As for these things which you see, the days will come in which there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.”

⁷They asked him, “Teacher, so when will these things be? What is the sign that these things are about to happen?”

⁸He said, “Watch out that you don’t get led astray, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ ^[+] and, ‘The time is at hand.’ Therefore don’t follow them. ⁹When you hear of wars and disturbances, don’t be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end won’t come immediately.”

¹⁰Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. ¹¹There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven. ¹²But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake. ¹³It will turn out as a testimony for you. ¹⁴Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer, ¹⁵for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict. ¹⁶You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death. ¹⁷You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake. ¹⁸And not a hair of your head will perish.

¹⁹“By your endurance you will win your lives.

²⁰“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand. ²¹Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are in the middle of her depart. Let those who are in the country not enter therein. ²²For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. ²³Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land and wrath to this people. ²⁴They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

²⁵“There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves; ²⁶men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸But when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.”

²⁹He told them a parable. “See the fig tree and all the trees. ³⁰When they are already budding, you see it and know by your own selves that the summer is already near. ³¹Even so you also, when you see these things happening, know that God’s Kingdom is near. ³²Most certainly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things are accomplished. ³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away.

³⁴“So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly. ³⁵For it will come like a snare on all those who dwell on the surface of all the earth. ³⁶Therefore be watchful all the time, praying that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

³¹Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³²Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an envoy and asks for conditions of peace.