1Jesus and his followers left God’s ceremony house and walked along outside it. One of them said, “Hey, Teacher, look at these lovely buildings. And look at these big stones. This is a really good house that they made for God.”
2Jesus said, “You see these lovely big buildings? One day these buildings will not be here. Somebody will knock them all down. They will just be a big pile of stones.”
3Then Jesus and his followers went out of Jerusalem and sat down on the hill called Olive Trees. They could see God’s ceremony house from there. Peter, James, John and Andrew quietly asked Jesus,
4“When will somebody knock that building down? Will there be something to show us that it will happen soon?”
5Jesus said, “Look out. You have to be careful. Don’t let anybody trick you.
6A lot of people will come and use my name and say, ‘I’m Christ, the one God sent,’ and they will trick a lot of people.
7You will hear stories about big fights, and somebody might tell you stories about big fights that will happen later. Don’t let these stories frighten you. These fights will happen, but the world will not finish up yet.
8There will be a lot more fights. People from some tribes will fight against people from other tribes, and people from some countries will get up and fight against people from other countries. And in lots of different places the ground will shake in earthquakes, and sometimes there will not be any food. People will be really hungry. These bad things will happen, then after that, more big trouble will come. You know about women, when they have babies. At first a woman has some pain, then later her pain gets really bad. Listen. The trouble I just told you about is like the first pain for a mother. After that the trouble will get really bad.
9You have to be careful and look after yourselves properly. You follow me, but people that don’t like me will not like you. They will grab you and take you to court and bash you in public places. They will put you on trial so that you will stand up in front of big leaders and big government bosses. This will be your chance to tell everyone about me,
10so that people everywhere will hear about me. Before the world finishes up, people in every tribe have to hear the good news about me.
11Yes, people will grab you and take you to court, but don’t worry about what you will say to the judge. The Holy Spirit will give you the right words to say, so just talk the way the Holy Spirit tells you to.
12There will be so much trouble that people will fight their own families. Some brothers will help people catch their other brothers and kill them. And some fathers will do that to their own kids. And some kids will turn against their fathers and mothers and get people to kill them.
13And everybody will know that you follow me, so they will hate you. But if you stay strong and don’t give up, God will save you.”
14Jesus kept talking (and everyone that reads this story has to try hard to understand what it means). Jesus said, “Somebody will put a really bad thing inside God’s house in Jerusalem. That bad thing shouldn’t be in God’s house. There will be a lot of trouble. When you see this happen you mob that live in Judea have to get up quickly and run away to the hills.
15If you are outside your house, don’t go back into it to get anything.
16Or if you are in a paddock, don’t go back to your house to get something, not even your coat. Just run away quick.
17It will be hard for women that are carrying babies inside them, and for mothers with little kids at that time.
18You have to pray to God so that this trouble doesn’t come at the time when the weather is bad and it’s hard to go anywhere.
19This trouble will give people really bad pain. People have always had pain, right from the beginning when God made everything, but their pain from this trouble will be the worst, and nobody will have as much pain again after this hard time.
20If God lets that trouble keep going everybody will die. But God has picked out some people and he doesn’t want them to die, so he will make this trouble time a bit short so that they will not die.
21And then if anyone says, ‘We have found Christ, that special man from God. Here he is,’ don’t believe them. Or if they say, ‘There he is over there,’ don’t believe them.
22There will be a lot of people that will tell lies and say they are the special man from God called Christ, but they will be trying to trick you. Other people will tell lies and say they are talking God’s words, and they might do all kinds of clever things. These people will be thinking, ‘Maybe we can trick the people that God picked out for himself.’ But really, they can’t do that.
23So Look out. I’m telling you about it now so that later, when it happens, you can be ready for it.
24After that time of trouble the sun will go dark and the moon will stop shining.
25The stars and the other powerful things in the sky will all shake about and fall out of the sky. (That is all in God’s book.)
26Then everybody will see God’s special man come back from heaven in the clouds. People will see that he is really strong, and powerful, and shining really bright.
27Then he will send God’s angel messengers out to every place all over the world, and all across the sky, to get those people that belong to God. He picked out those people for himself. The angels will bring all those people to God.
28Think about this. Whenever you see new leaves on a bush tucker tree, you know that hot weather time will come soon. Those new leaves show you that.
29It’s the same with all these things that I’m telling you about now, they will show you something too. You will see these things happen and you will know that I’m properly close up, and I will come really soon.
30I’m telling you straight. All these things I talked about will happen while you mob here are still alive.
31Everything will finish up. The sky and the ground and everything will finish up, but not my words. My words stay true for ever. They will never will finish up.”
32Then Jesus said, “I’m telling you straight. Nobody knows the time when God will do these things. Nobody knows what day, or what the time will be on the clock. God’s angel messengers in heaven don’t know. Even I don’t know. My Father in Heaven is the only one that knows.
33You don’t know what time God will do these things, so you have to keep remembering everything I told you, like you have to stay awake and keep looking out for me.
34Listen to this picture story. A man left his house and went on a trip. He told his workmen to look after everything and do their own jobs. He said to the guard at the gate, ‘Keep looking out to see me coming back.’
35Those workmen didn’t know what time the boss of that house was going to come home. He might come after the sun goes down, or he might come in the middle of the night, or he might come as the birds call out in the morning, or might come back after the sun comes up. You are like those workmen. You don’t know what time I will come back here and you have to be ready for me. So you have to keep looking out for me, like that guard at the gate has to keep looking out. Don’t get tired and sleepy.
37I’m telling you mob, like I tell everybody else. You’ve got to stay awake, and keep watching.”
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