Mark 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

As Jesus leaves the temple, a disciple admires its buildings, and Jesus says every stone will be thrown down. On the Mount of Olives, four disciples ask privately when this will happen and what the sign will be. Jesus answers with a long warning: deceivers, wars, earthquakes, famines, arrests and family betrayal will come; when the abomination of desolation stands where it should not, people in Judea must flee; after that suffering the sun and moon will go dark and the Son of Man will come in the clouds to gather his chosen ones. He says no one knows the day or hour except the Father, and tells them to keep watch.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • Jesus was going out of the temple.
   • One of his disciples spoke to him.
   • The disciple addressed him as Teacher.
   • The disciple called attention to the stones.
   • The disciple called attention to the buildings.
   • The disciple described the stones and buildings as remarkable in kind.
2. 13:2
   • Jesus answered the disciple.
   • Jesus asked whether he saw these great buildings.
   • Jesus said not one stone would be left upon another.
   • Jesus said every stone would be thrown down.
3. 13:3
   • Jesus sat on the mount of Olives.
   • The mount of Olives is opposite the temple.
   • Peter asked him a question.
   • James asked him a question.
   • John asked him a question.
   • Andrew asked him a question.
   • They asked him privately.
4. 13:4
   • They asked Jesus to tell them when these things would be.
   • They asked what the sign would be when all these things were about to be fulfilled.
5. 13:5
   • Jesus began to speak to them.
   • Jesus told them to take heed that no one deceive them.
6. 13:6
   • Jesus said many would come in his name.
   • Jesus said they would say, I am he.
   • Jesus said they would deceive many.
7. 13:7
   • Jesus said they would hear of wars and rumors of wars.
   • Jesus told them not to be troubled when they heard of wars.
   • Jesus said such things must happen.
   • Jesus said the end would not be yet.
8. 13:8
   • Jesus said nation would rise against nation.
   • Jesus said kingdom would rise against kingdom.
   • Jesus said there would be earthquakes in various places.
   • Jesus said there would be famines.
   • Jesus said there would be troubles.
   • Jesus said these things are the beginning of birth pains.
9. 13:9
   • Jesus told them to take heed to themselves.
   • Jesus said they would be delivered up to councils.
   • Jesus said they would be beaten in the synagogues.
   • Jesus said they would be brought before rulers and kings.
   • Jesus said this would happen for his sake.
   • Jesus said this would be for a testimony to them.
10. 13:10
    • Jesus said the gospel must first be preached among all nations.
11. 13:11
    • Jesus said they would be led away and delivered up.
    • Jesus told them not to worry beforehand about what to speak.
    • Jesus told them not to premeditate.
    • Jesus told them to speak whatever is given them in that hour.
    • Jesus said it would not be they who speak.
    • Jesus said the Holy Spirit would be the one speaking.
12. 13:12
    • Jesus said brother would betray brother to death.
    • Jesus said a father would betray his child to death.
    • Jesus said children would rise up against their parents.
    • Jesus said children would cause their parents to be put to death.
13. 13:13
    • Jesus said they would be hated by all men.
    • Jesus said this hatred would be because of his name.
    • Jesus said the one who endures to the end will be saved.
14. 13:14
    • Jesus spoke of seeing the abomination of desolation.
    • The King James text says the abomination of desolation was spoken of by Daniel the prophet.
    • Jesus said it would be standing where it ought not to stand.
    • The text tells the reader to understand.
    • Jesus said that then those in Judaea should flee to the mountains.
15. 13:15
    • Jesus said the one on the housetop should not go down.
    • Jesus said he should not enter the house to take anything out of it.
16. 13:16
    • Jesus said the one in the field should not turn back to take up his garment.
17. 13:17
    • Jesus pronounced woe on pregnant women in those days.
    • Jesus pronounced woe on nursing women in those days.
18. 13:18
    • Jesus told them to pray that it not happen in winter.
    • The King James text specifies that the thing prayed about is their flight.
19. 13:19
    • Jesus said those days would be days of affliction.
    • Jesus said such affliction had not occurred from the beginning of the creation until that time.
    • Jesus said God created the creation.
    • Jesus said such affliction would never occur again.
20. 13:20
    • Jesus said that unless the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh would be saved.
    • Jesus said the Lord shortened the days for the sake of the elect.
    • Jesus said the Lord chose the elect.
21. 13:21
    • Jesus said that then someone might say to them, Here is the Christ.
    • Jesus said someone might say, He is there.
    • Jesus told them not to believe it.
22. 13:22
    • Jesus said false Christs would arise.
    • Jesus said false prophets would arise.
    • Jesus said they would show signs and wonders.
    • Jesus said the purpose was to deceive the elect.
    • Jesus said deceiving the elect would happen only if it were possible.
23. 13:23
    • Jesus told them to take heed.
    • Jesus said he had told them all things beforehand.
24. 13:24
    • Jesus said that in those days, after that tribulation, the sun would be darkened.
    • Jesus said the moon would not give her light.
25. 13:25
    • Jesus said the stars of heaven would fall.
    • Jesus said the powers in the heavens would be shaken.
26. 13:26
    • Jesus said they would then see the Son of man coming in the clouds.
    • Jesus said he would come with great power and glory.
27. 13:27
    • Jesus said he would then send his angels.
    • Jesus said he would gather his elect from the four winds.
    • Jesus said the gathering would reach from the farthest part of the earth to the farthest part of heaven.
28. 13:28
    • Jesus told them to learn a parable from the fig tree.
    • Jesus said the fig tree's branch becomes tender.
    • Jesus said the fig tree puts forth leaves.
    • Jesus said they know from this that summer is near.
29. 13:29
    • Jesus said that likewise, when they see these things happening, they should know that it is near.
    • Jesus said it is at the doors.
30. 13:30
    • Jesus said truly to them.
    • Jesus said this generation would not pass away until all these things happen.
31. 13:31
    • Jesus said heaven and earth will pass away.
    • Jesus said his words will not pass away.
32. 13:32
    • Jesus said no one knows that day or that hour.
    • Jesus said the angels in heaven do not know it.
    • Jesus said the Son does not know it.
    • Jesus said the Father knows it.
33. 13:33
    • Jesus told them to take heed.
    • Jesus told them to watch.
    • The King James text adds that they should pray.
    • Jesus said they do not know when the time is.
34. 13:34
    • The King James text says the Son of man is like a man taking a far journey.
    • Jesus said the man left his house.
    • Jesus said the man gave authority to his servants.
    • Jesus said the man assigned each servant his work.
    • Jesus said the man commanded the doorkeeper to watch.
35. 13:35
    • Jesus told them to watch.
    • Jesus said they do not know when the master of the house comes.
    • Jesus said the master might come in the evening.
    • Jesus said the master might come at midnight.
    • Jesus said the master might come at the cockcrowing.
    • Jesus said the master might come in the morning.
36. 13:36
    • Jesus said the master might come suddenly.
    • Jesus said the master might find them sleeping.
37. 13:37
    • Jesus said what he says to them he says to all.
    • Jesus told them to watch.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

The KJV's "Master" here translates a word that simply means teacher; it carries no sense of owner or ruler. The buildings are Herod the Great's rebuilt temple complex, begun around 20 BC and still unfinished in Jesus' lifetime. Some of its foundation blocks weigh dozens of tons, which is why a visitor would stop and stare.

13:2

Roman troops burned and dismantled the temple in AD 70, about forty years after this conversation. Mark's first readers were living either just before or just after that event.

13:3

The Mount of Olives is a ridge just east of Jerusalem, separated from the city by the Kidron valley. From its slope the temple platform lies directly in view, so the four men are looking at the buildings they are asking about. "Over against" in the KJV means opposite, facing.

13:4

A sign is something you see that tells you what is coming. Dark clouds are a sign of rain.

13:5

"Take heed" is old English for pay close attention, or watch out.

13:6

The KJV supplies the word "Christ"; the Greek says only "I am," which can be a claim to be the Messiah or an echo of the divine name. "Christ" is not a surname but a title, the Greek word for "anointed one," matching the Hebrew "Messiah" and naming the deliverer-king Israel expected.

13:7

"Must needs be" is 1611 English for "have to happen."

13:8

"Divers places" is 1611 English for various places, not places that differ in kind. "The beginnings of sorrows" translates a word for birth pangs, a standard Jewish image for the convulsions expected before a new age; the force of the image is that these pains are the start of something, not the end of it.

13:9

"Councils" translates a word for local Jewish courts, the same word used of the high council in Jerusalem. Synagogues served as courts as well as places of assembly and worship, and a local court could sentence a man to a flogging of up to thirty-nine lashes. The Greek behind "for a testimony against them" says only "as a witness to them," which can mean evidence laid before them or evidence used against them; the KJV settles an ambiguity the original leaves open.

13:10

In 1611 "published" meant proclaimed out loud in public; it had nothing to do with printing. "Nations" translates a word normally used for the non-Jewish peoples, the Gentiles.

13:11

"Take no thought" is 1611 English for do not be anxious, not do not think; "premeditate" means work out your words in advance. "Ghost" meant spirit in 1611, so "Holy Ghost" and "Holy Spirit" are the same two words in the original.

13:12

The wording echoes the prophet Micah, who described a society breaking down so far that families turned on each other. Under persecution, informing on a relative to the authorities was a real and documented danger, not just a figure of speech.

13:13

"Hated of all men" means hated by everyone; "of" carried the sense of "by." "Endure unto the end" is left open in the Greek: it can mean the end of a life, the end of the ordeal, or the end spoken of in verse 7.

13:14

The phrase comes from the book of Daniel (9:27; 11:31; 12:11) and means a desecrating outrage that leaves the sanctuary deserted. Hearers in Jesus' day would think of the pagan altar the Syrian king Antiochus IV set up in the temple in 167 BC. In Greek the participle "standing" is masculine although the noun it attaches to is neuter, which hints at a person rather than an object. "Let him that readeth understand" is an aside to whoever reads the text aloud to a gathering, flagging that something is being said indirectly. Judaea is the region around Jerusalem.

13:15

Houses had flat roofs reached by an outside stair, used for sleeping, drying food and storage. The instruction is to go down the outside stair and run without stepping back indoors at all.

13:16

The garment is the outer cloak, heavy and costly, laid aside at the edge of the field while working. Law required a cloak taken in pledge to be handed back by nightfall because a poor man slept in it, so abandoning one is a real loss, not a trifle.

13:17

"Woe" here is a cry of grief, closer to "how dreadful it will be for them" than to a curse. Pregnant women and nursing mothers cannot move fast or travel light, which is the point in a passage about sudden flight.

13:18

Winter is the rainy season in that country. Streambeds fill, roads turn to mud, and unbridged valleys become impassable.

13:19

"Affliction" translates a word meaning pressure or crushing, elsewhere rendered tribulation. The wording deliberately echoes Daniel 12:1, which speaks of a time of trouble such as there never was since there was a nation.

13:20

"No flesh should be saved" uses "flesh" for human beings in general, and "saved" in its plain sense of coming through alive. "The elect" means those chosen or picked out; the same word lies behind "chosen ones" in verses 22 and 27.

13:21

"Christ" is a title, not a last name. It means the chosen one, the king God had promised to send.

13:22

In 1611 "seduce" meant simply to lead astray, with no sexual sense at all. "Signs and wonders" is a stock pair of words for striking displays of power, used in the Old Testament of what Moses did in Egypt.

13:23

"Behold" means look and listen. "Foretold" means told about before it happened.

13:24

These two verses are stitched together from Isaiah (13:10 and 34:4). In the prophets this darkening-sky language is the standard way of announcing the collapse of a great power, so the first hearers would recognize borrowed prophetic wording rather than a fresh description.

13:25

"The powers that are in heaven" is deliberately open: it can mean the heavenly bodies themselves, or the unseen powers that were thought to stand behind them.

13:26

"Son of man" is Jesus' habitual way of referring to himself. In Aramaic the phrase can mean simply a human being, but the picture here of one coming with clouds comes straight from Daniel 7:13, where a figure like a son of man approaches God and is given lasting dominion.

13:27

"The four winds" means the four compass directions, that is, everywhere. "From the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven" pairs two idioms for the far horizon, together covering the whole of things.

13:28

The fig tree is one of the few trees in that country that drops its leaves in winter and buds late in the spring, so its leafing is a reliable local sign that the hot season has arrived.

13:29

The Greek can be read either "it is near" or "he is near"; the words alone do not settle which. "At the doors" is an idiom for standing on the threshold, about to come in.

13:30

"Verily" translates "amen," a word of solemn affirmation, used here to open a statement rather than to close a prayer. "This generation" ordinarily means the people alive at the time, though the same word can also mean a kind or breed of people; which sense is meant here has been argued over since early times.

13:31

"Pass away" means come to an end and be gone.

13:32

"Knoweth no man" means no one at all knows, not no male; the sentence goes on to include angels and the Son among those who do not know.

13:33

"Watch" here means stay awake, as a night guard does; it is not about looking at something. "The time" translates a word for the appointed moment, the right occasion, rather than clock time.

13:34

"Porter" is 1611 English for a doorkeeper, the servant stationed at the entrance; it has nothing to do with carrying luggage.

13:35

The four times listed are the four watches into which the Roman night was divided: roughly six to nine in the evening, nine to midnight, midnight to three, and three to six. "Cockcrowing" was the ordinary name for that third watch ending near dawn, and "at even" means in the evening.