Study Desk

"Be prepared, and keep your lamps lit.

Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;

"You are also to be like people who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door for him when he comes and knocks.

And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.

"Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will prepare himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and he will come up and serve them.

Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.

"Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.

"But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.

And this know, that if the goodman of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be broken through.

"You too, be ready; because the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not think He will."

Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.