Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes.
Parallel translations
- KJV Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
- BSB Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come.
- NKJV Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.
- NASB “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming.
- NLT “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming.
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
Therefore watch, because you do not know when your Lord comes. Constant readiness is the proper response to an unknown hour.
Overview
Jesus draws the practical conclusion from his warnings: stay spiritually awake. Ignorance of the time is not cause for anxiety but for steady watchfulness and faithful living. 'Your Lord' personalizes the command, framing it as devotion to a master who will return. Watching means ongoing obedience and trust, not idle date-gazing.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Luke 21:36Therefore be watchful all the time, praying that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
- 1 Th 5:6so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober.
- Matt 25:13Watch therefore, for you don’t know the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
- Rev 16:15“Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he doesn’t walk naked, and they see his shame.”
- 1 Cor 16:13Watch! Stand firm in the faith! Be courageous! Be strong!
- Matt 24:36But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
- Luke 12:35–40“Let your waist be dressed and your lamps burning.
- Matt 24:44Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.
- Rom 13:11Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed.
- Matt 26:38–41Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
- 1 Pet 5:8Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
- Rev 3:2–3Wake up, and keep the things that remain, which you were about to throw away, for I have found no works of yours perfected before my God.
- Mark 13:33–37Watch, keep alert, and pray; for you don’t know when the time is.
- 1 Pet 4:7But the end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound mind, self-controlled, and sober in prayer.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Matthew presents Jesus as the promised King — son of David, son of Abraham — the new Moses and true Israel in whom every prophecy reaches 'that it might be fulfilled.'
How Matthew 24:42 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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