The Book in the order it was written
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How does the world end?

The end is searched for more than almost anything else here, usually as though the collection contained one timetable. It contains a series of them, and the last writers are already explaining why the earlier ones have not happened.

  1. IIc. 760-700 BCE
    Amos · Chapter 5
    18 “Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh! Why do you long for the day of Yahweh? It is darkness, and not light.
    20 Won’t the day of Yahweh be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?

    The earliest surviving mention of 'the day of Yahweh', and it is already arguing with people who use the phrase — so the idea is older than the oldest text of it. In its first appearance the day is a warning to the faithful rather than a promise to them.

  2. IIIc. 700-587 BCE
    Zephaniah · Chapter 1
    14 The great day of Yahweh is near. It is near and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of Yahweh. The mighty man cries there bitterly.
    15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,

    A century on, the day has become universal wrath. These two verses are the source of the Dies Irae, which is why the vocabulary sounds familiar before you have read it.

  3. IV587-539 BCE
    Ezekiel · Chapter 38
    2 “Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him,
    15 You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you, and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.

    In exile, the enemy becomes a named figure from the far north who attacks at the end. Gog of Magog is reused by Revelation six centuries later and has been identified with a different contemporary power in almost every generation since.

  4. VIc. 400-200 BCE
    Zechariah 9-14 · Chapter 14
    1 Behold, a day of Yahweh comes, when your plunder will be divided within you.
    9 Yahweh will be King over all the earth. In that day Yahweh will be one, and his name one.

    The chapters of Zechariah that this volume dates later than the first eight. The end is now a specific geography — the Mount of Olives splitting — and it ends with God king over all the earth rather than with Jerusalem rescued.

  5. VIIc. 200-100 BCE
    Daniel · Chapter 7
    13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him.
    14 Dominion was given him, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and his kingdom one that will not be destroyed.

    167-164 BCE, in a persecution. One like a son of man comes with the clouds and receives a kingdom that does not end. Every later stop in this thread is written by someone who knows this passage.

  6. IXc. 50-110 CE
    1 Thessalonians · Chapter 5
    1 But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you.
    2 For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
    3 For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.

    The earliest surviving Christian document, and the expectation is imminent and unscheduled at the same time: like a thief, so no date can be worked out, and soon enough that the letter is answering a practical question about it.

  7. IXc. 50-110 CE
    2 Thessalonians · Chapter 2
    1 Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you
    2 not to be quickly shaken in your mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come.
    3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction.

    A correction, and evidence that timetables were already circulating: someone has told this congregation the day has come, possibly in a forged letter. The reply inserts a sequence that has to happen first.

  8. IXc. 50-110 CE
    Mark · Chapter 13
    26 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.
    30 Most certainly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things happen.
    32 “But of that day or that hour no one knows—not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

    The gospel apocalypse holds two things at once, two verses apart: this generation will not pass away, and nobody knows the day, not even the Son. Both sentences are in the earliest gospel, and the next stop but one is written by someone answering the first of them.

  9. IXc. 50-110 CE
    Revelation · Chapter 21
    1 I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.
    4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”

    The best-known ending in the collection, and it is not an escape from the world. The city comes down, God moves in, and the earth is the address.

  10. IXc. 50-110 CE
    2 Peter · Chapter 3
    4 and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
    8 But don’t forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
    9 The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but he is patient with us, not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

    The last word, in the latest-written book here, and it quotes the objection before answering it: where is the promise of his coming, since nothing has changed? The answer given is about God's timekeeping and God's patience, not about a date.

The thread ends with the problem rather than the picture. Mark's generation had passed; the letter answering that is the latest-written book in the New Testament, and its answer is that the delay is deliberate and that God does not keep time the way the question assumes. Whether that is a revelation or a rescue of a prediction is precisely what the arrangement cannot decide. What the arrangement shows is that the objection was raised inside the collection, by its own writers, and was not edited out.

The passages above are the text, reproduced exactly and checked against the same files the reader uses; every reference is verified when the site is built. The commentary between them is editorial, written for this volume.

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