²⁴"Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

²⁵Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

²⁶For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

²⁷And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice

²⁹and come out — those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.

Believers Who Have Died

¹³Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.

¹⁴For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

¹⁵According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

¹⁶For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

¹⁷After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.

⁴²So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;

⁴³it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;

⁴⁴it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

⁵⁰I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

⁵¹Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed —

⁵²in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

⁵³For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

⁵⁴When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

¹¹For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.

¹⁴because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.

¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

³⁶"Now when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed.

³⁷But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.

³⁰"Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

³¹And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

²⁵"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.

²⁶People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.

²⁷At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

²⁸When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

²⁴"But in those days, following that distress, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;

²⁵the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.”

²⁶At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

²⁷And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

¹²The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.

⁷But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.

¹⁵The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

³¹"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

³³He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

³⁴"Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

⁴⁰"The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

⁴⁶"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

⁴²Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

⁴³Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."

³¹"But about the resurrection of the dead — have you not read what God said to you:

³²“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."

⁹When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”

¹⁰

¹¹Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.

⁹After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

¹³"These in white robes — who are they, and where did they come from?"

¹⁴And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

¹⁷For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”