"Do you see all these things?" Jesus asked. "What I'm about to tell you is true. Not one stone here will be left on top of another. Every stone will be thrown down."
Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives. There the disciples came to him in private. "Tell us," they said. "When will this happen? And what will be the sign of your coming? What will be the sign of the end?"
"You will hear about wars. You will also hear people talking about future wars. Don't be alarmed. Those things must happen. But the end still isn't here.
"The prophet Daniel spoke about 'the hated thing that destroys.'--(Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) Someday you will see it standing in the holy place. The reader should understand this.
There will be terrible suffering in those days. It will be worse than any other from the beginning of the world until now. And there will never be anything like it again.
"Right after the terrible suffering of those days, " 'The sun will be darkened. The moon will not shine. The stars will fall from the sky. The heavenly bodies will be shaken.' --(Isaiah 13:10; 34:4)
"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. All the nations on earth will be sad. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky. He will come with power and great glory.
He will send his angels with a loud trumpet call. They will gather his chosen people from all four directions. They will bring them from one end of the heavens to the other.
"In the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking. They were getting married. They were giving their daughters to be married. They did all those things right up to the day Noah entered the ark.
You must understand something. Suppose the owner of the house knew what time of night the robber was coming. Then he would have kept watch. He would not have let his house be broken into.
"Suppose a master puts one of his servants in charge of the other servants in his house. The servant's job is to give them their food at the right time. The master wants a faithful and wise servant for this.