15 Someone who is on the roof of his house must not lose time by going down into the house to get anything to take with him.
16 Someone who is in the field must not go back to the house for his cloak.
17 How terrible it will be in those days for women who are pregnant and for mothers with little babies!
18 Pray to God that these things will not happen in the winter!
19 For the trouble of those days will be far worse than any the world has ever known from the very beginning when God created the world until the present time. Nor will there ever be anything like it again.
20 But the Lord has reduced the number of those days; if he had not, nobody would survive. For the sake of his chosen people, however, he has reduced those days.
21 “Then, if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ — do not believe him.