Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
Parallel translations
- WEB lest coming suddenly he might find you sleeping.
- BSB Otherwise, he may arrive without notice and find you sleeping.
- NKJV lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping.
- NASB so that he does not come suddenly and find you asleep.
- NLT Don’t let him find you sleeping when he arrives without warning.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The warning is lest the master return suddenly and find his servants asleep. Spiritual sleep leaves us unprepared for Christ's coming.
Overview
To be found 'sleeping' pictures spiritual complacency and unreadiness. Jesus warns against drifting into carelessness during his absence. The danger is not active rebellion only but passive slumber. The call is to remain spiritually awake and engaged, living in expectation of the Lord who may come at the least-expected hour.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- 1 Th 5:6–7Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
- Rom 13:11–14And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.
- Mark 14:40And when he returned, he found them asleep again, (for their eyes were heavy,) neither wist they what to answer him.
- Matt 24:48–51But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
- Luke 21:34And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.
- Matt 25:5While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
- Isa 56:10His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.
- Prov 6:9–11How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?
- Prov 24:33–34Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:
- Mark 14:37And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour?
- Eph 5:14Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
- Song 5:2I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.
- Song 3:1By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
- Luke 22:45And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Mark drives urgently to the cross, showing Jesus the Son of God as the suffering Servant who 'came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.'
How Mark 13:36 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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