2 Where my Father is in heaven there is plenty of room! If that were not true, I would have told you. I am about to go there to prepare a place for you. 3 And because I will go there and prepare a place for you, I will return and take you there to be with me. I will do that so that you may also be where I am.

9 After he said that, he was taken {God took him} up to heaven, while they were watching. He went up into a cloud [PRS], which prevented them from seeing him any more.

10 While the apostles were still staring towards the sky as he was going up, suddenly two men who were wearing white clothes stood beside them. They were angels. 11 One of them said, "You men from Galilee district, ◄you do not need to stand here any longer looking up at the sky!/why do you still stand here looking up at the sky?► [RHQ] Some day this same Jesus, whom God took from you up to heaven, will come back to earth. He will return in the same manner as you just now saw him when he went up to heaven, but he will not return now."

20 Jesus, who says that all the things written here are true, says, "Certainly I am coming soon!" I, John, reply, "◄May it be so!/Amen!► Lord Jesus, come!"

12 Jesus says this to everyone: "Listen! I am coming soon! And I will pay back everyone according to what each one has done, by punishing or rewarding them.

36 "But neither I, nor any other person, nor any angel in heaven, knows either the day or the hour when the things that I have told you about will happen. Only God, my Father, knows. 37-39 It will be like what happened when Noah lived. Until the flood came, the people did not know that anything bad would happen to them. Before the flood waters covered the earth, the people were eating and drinking as usual. Some men were marrying women and some parents were giving their daughters to men to marry them. They were doing all this until the day that Noah and his family entered the big boat. And then the flood came and drowned all those who were not in the boat. Similarly, the unbelieving people will not know when I, the one who came from heaven, will return, and they will not be expecting me.

32 But no one knows the exact time when I will return. The angels in heaven also do not know. Even I do not know. Only my Father knows.

1 My fellow believers, I want to tell you more about the time or period when the Lord Jesus will come back. Really, you do not need me to you about that, 2 because you yourselves know accurately what will happen! You know that the Lord Jesus will return [MTY] unexpectedly (OR, when some people are unprepared). People will not expect him, just like no one knows when a thief comes unexpectedly at night [SIM]. 3 At a future time many people will say, "All is peaceful and we are safe!" Then suddenly the Lord Jesus will come to punish people severely! Just like a pregnant woman who experiences birth pains cannot stop those pains, those people will definitely not have any way to escape their punishment.

42 So, because you do not know what day I, your Lord, will return to the earth, you need to be ready for me to return at any time. 43 You know that if the owners of a house knew at what time in the night thieves would come, they would be awake and prevent the thieves from breaking into their houses. Similarly, I will come just like unexpectedly as a thief. 44 So you need to be ready for my return, because I, the one who came from heaven, will return to the earth at a time when you do not expect me to come."

1 Now I want to write to you about the time when our Lord Jesus Christ will return and when God will gather us together to where Jesus is. My fellow believers, I urge you 2 that you think calmly about any message that claims/says that the Lord has already come again. Do not be shaken or alarmed/worried by any such message. It does not matter if it is a message that someone claims God’s Spirit revealed to him, or if it is some other message that someone has spoken, or whether it is a message that someone claims that I wrote in a letter. 3 Do not allow anyone to deceive you in any way with the result that you believe any such message.

The Lord will not come [MTY] immediately. First, many people [PRS] will rebel against God. The result of their rebelling will be that they will accept and obey the man who will sin very greatly against God. 4 He will be the supreme enemy of God. He will proudly exalt himself above everything that people consider to be some god and above everything that people worship. As a result of wanting people to worship him, he will even enter God’s Temple and sit down there to rule. He will publicly proclaim that he himself is God! But God will certainly punish that man forever!

16 It is the Lord Jesus himself who will descend from heaven. When he comes down, he will command all of us believers to rise from their graves. The chief angel will shout loudly, and another angel will blow a trumpet for God. Then (OR, As a result), the first thing that will happen is that the people who trusted in Christ before they died will live again. 17 After that, God will powerfully take up into the clouds all of us believers who are still living on this earth. He will take us and those other believers who have died, in order that we all might together meet/welcome the Lord Jesus in the sky. As a result of that, we all will be with him forever.

24 After the time when people suffer like that, the sun will become dark, the moon will not shine, 25 the stars will fall from the sky, and all things in the sky will be shaken {God will cause all things in the sky to shake}. 26 Then people will see me, the one who came from heaven, coming through the clouds powerfully and gloriously. 27 Then I will send out my angels in order that they gather together the people whom God has chosen from everywhere, and that includes all the most remote places on earth [IDM, DOU].

31 "When I, the one who came from heaven, come again, I will be very radiant and bring all my angels with me. Then I will sit as a king on my wonderful throne to judge people. 32 People from all nations [MTY] will be gathered in front of me {The angels will gather in front of me people from all nations}. Then I will separate them, one from another, as a shepherd separates his sheep from his goats. 33 I will put the righteous people on my right and the unrighteous ones on my left, as a shepherd puts sheep on one side and goats on the other side.

11 In the vision I saw heaven opened {open}, and I was surprised to see a white horse. Jesus, the one who was riding on the horse, is called ‘Trustworthy and Genuine/True’. He judges all people according to what is right, and fights righteously against his enemies. 12 His eyes shone like [MET] a flame of fire. There were many royal crowns on his head. A name had been written on him. Only he knows the meaning of that name. 13 The robe he was wearing was drenched with blood. His name is also "◄The one who expresses what God is like/The Word of God►." 14 The armies of heaven were following him. They were also riding on white horses. They were wearing clothes made of clean white linen. 15 The words that Jesus speaks are like [MTY] a sharp sword with which he will strike the rebellious people of the nations. He himself will rule them powerfully, as though he had [MET] an iron rod. He will crush his enemies just like [MET] a person crushes grapes in a winepress. He will do this for God Almighty, who is extremely angry with them because of their sins. 16 On his cloak close to his thigh a name had been written {he had written a name}, which is "King who rules over all other kings and Lord who rules over all other lords."

26 Those who reject my message and refuse to say that they belong to me, I, the one who came from heaven, will also refuse to say that they belong to me when I come back with the holy angels, and have the glorious brightness that my Father has.

8 Dear friends, I want you to understand well that the Lord God is willing to wait a long time to judge the people in the world! How much time passes before the Lord God judges the people in the world does not matter to him! He considers that one day passes no more quickly than 1,000 years, and he also considers that 1,000 years pass as quickly as one day passes to us! 9 Therefore, you should not think that because Christ has not yet come back to judge people, the Lord God is ◄delaying/slow to do► what he promised. Some people think that this is so, and they say that Christ will never come back. But you should understand that the reason why Christ has not yet come back to judge people is that God is being patient with you, because he does not want anyone to be lost eternally. Instead, he wants everyone to turn away from their sinful behavior. 10 Although God is being patient, at the time [MTY] that he has chosen, the Lord Jesus Christ will certainly come back to judge people. He will come back unexpectedly, like a thief [SIM] comes unexpectedly. At that time there will be a great roaring sound. The heavens will cease to exist. ◄The elements/The parts of which the universe consists► will be destroyed by fire, and the earth that God made and everything on it that people have made will disappear (OR, will be burned up).

11 Because God will certainly destroy all these things like I just said, you certainly know how you should behave. [RHQ] You should behave ◄in a godly manner/in a manner that pleases God► 12 while you eagerly/expectantly wait for Christ to return on the day that God has chosen [MTY], and you should try to make that day come soon. Because of what God [PRS] will do on that day, the heavens will be destroyed. ◄The elements/The parts of which the universe consist► will melt and burn up. 13 Although all those events/things will happen, we rejoice because we are waiting for the new heavens and new earth that God has promised. The only people who will be in the new heavens and on this new earth will be people who are [PRS] righteous.

27 All people must die once, and after that God will judge them for their sins. 28 Likewise, when Christ died, God offered him once to be a sacrifice, to punish him instead of the many people who had sinned. He will come to earth a second time, not in order to sacrifice himself again for those who have sinned, but in order to complete his saving those who expectantly wait for him.