Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
Parallel translations
- WEB Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes.
- 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 21:36Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
- 1 Th 5:6Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
- Matt 25:13Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.
- Rev 16:15Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
- 1 Cor 16:13Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.
- Matt 24:36But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
- Luke 12:35–40Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;
- Matt 24:44Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
- Rom 13:11And 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.
- Matt 26:38–41Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.
- 1 Pet 5:8Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
- Rev 3:2–3Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
- Mark 13:33–37Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
- 1 Pet 4:7But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.