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What a terrible time it will be for pregnant women and nursing mothers!
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Pray that you will not have to escape in winter or on Shabbat.
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For there will be trouble then worse than there has ever been from the beginning of the world until now, and there will be nothing like it again!
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Indeed, if the length of this time had not been limited, no one would survive; but for the sake of those who have been chosen, its length will be limited.
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"At that time, if someone says to you, `Look! Here's the Messiah!' or, `There he is!' don't believe him.
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For there will appear false Messiahs and false prophets performing great miracles -- amazing things! -- so as to fool even the chosen, if pos sible.
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There! I have told you in advance!
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So if people say to you, `Listen! He's out in the desert!' don't go; or, `Look! He's hidden away in a secret room!' don't believe it.
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For when the Son of Man does come, it will be like lightning that flashes out of the east and fills the sky to the western horizon.
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Wherever there's a dead body, that's where you find the vultures.
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"But immediately following the trouble of those times, the sun will grow dark, the moon will stop shining, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in heaven will be shaken.
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"Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, all the tribes of the Land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with tremendous power and glory.
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He will send out his angels with a great shofar;m and they will gather together his chosen people from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
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"Now let the fig tree teach you its lesson: when its branches begin to sprout and leaves appear, you know that summer is approaching.
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In the same way, when you see all these things, you are to know that the time is near, right at the door.
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Yes! I tell you that this people will certainly not pass away before all these things happen.
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Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
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"But when that day and hour will come, no one knows -- not the angels in heaven, not the Son, only the Father.
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For the Son of Man's coming will be just as it was in the days of Noach.
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Back then, before the Flood, people went on eating and drinking, taking wives and becoming wives, right up till the day Noach entered the ark;
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and they didn't know what was happening until the Flood came and swept them all away. It will be just like that when the Son of Man comes.