I was watching in the night visions,
“And with the clouds of the sky
one like a son of man was approaching.
He went up to the Ancient of Days
and was escorted before him.
Now as Jesus was going out of the temple courts and walking away, his disciples came to show him the temple buildings.
And he said to them, “Do you see all these things? I tell you the truth, not one stone will be left on another. All will be torn down!”
As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man.
People were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage – right up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, people were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building;
but on the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
It will be the same on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
On that day, anyone who is on the roof, with his goods in the house, must not come down to take them away, and likewise the person in the field must not turn back.
Remember Lot’s wife!
Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.
I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.
There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
Then the disciples said to him, “Where, Lord?” He replied to them, “Where the dead body is, there the vultures will gather.”
and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven.”
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.
But understand this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, savage, opposed to what is good,
treacherous, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God.
They will maintain the outward appearance of religion but will have repudiated its power. So avoid people like these.
Above all, understand this: In the last days blatant scoffers will come, being propelled by their own evil urges
and saying, “Where is his promised return? For ever since our ancestors died, all things have continued as they were from the beginning of creation.”
For they deliberately suppress this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water.
Through these things the world existing at that time was destroyed when it was deluged with water.
But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, by being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
Now, dear friends, do not let this one thing escape your notice, that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day.
The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief; when it comes, the heavens will disappear with a horrific noise, and the celestial bodies will melt away in a blaze, and the earth and every deed done on it will be laid bare.