On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud on the mountain. There was a very loud blast from a trumpet, and all the people in the camp trembled.
God will raise a banner as a sign for all nations, and he will gather the people of Israel who were forced from their country. He will gather the scattered people of Judah from all parts of the earth.
This army is coming from a faraway land, from the edge of the horizon. In anger the Lord is using this army like a weapon to destroy the whole country.
Many of my people are now lost in Assyria. Some have run away to Egypt. But at that time a great trumpet will be blown, and all those people will come and worship the Lord on that holy mountain in Jerusalem.
Sing a new song to the Lord; sing his praise everywhere on the earth. Praise him, you people who sail on the seas and you animals who live in them. Praise him, you people living in faraway places.
I will tell the north: Give my people to me. I will tell the south: Don’t keep my people in prison. Bring my sons from far away and my daughters from faraway places.
Look up and look around you. All your children are gathering to return to you.” The Lord says, “As surely as I live, your children will be like jewels that a bride wears proudly.
You will run through this mountain valley to the other side, just as you ran from the earthquake when Uzziah was king of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the horses from Jerusalem. The bows used in war will be broken. The king will talk to the nations about peace. His kingdom will go from sea to sea, and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.
Then the Lord will appear above them, and his arrows will shoot like lightning. The Lord God will blow the trumpet, and he will march in the storms of the south.
God has decided to make that terrible time short. Otherwise, no one would go on living. But God will make that time short to help the people he has chosen.
False Christs and false prophets will come and perform great wonders and miracles. They will try to fool even the people God has chosen, if that is possible.
But I ask: Didn’t people hear the Good News? Yes, they heard—as the Scripture says: “Their message went out through all the world; their words go everywhere on earth.”
It will take only a second—as quickly as an eye blinks—when the last trumpet sounds. The trumpet will sound, and those who have died will be raised to live forever, and we will all be changed.
Nothing like this has ever happened before! Look at the past, long before you were even born. Go all the way back to when God made humans on the earth, and look from one end of heaven to the other. Nothing like this has ever been heard of!
The Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. And those who have died believing in Christ will rise first.
Here is the secret of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands: The seven lampstands are the seven churches, and the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. And there were loud voices in heaven, saying: “The power to rule the world now belongs to our Lord and his Christ, and he will rule forever and ever.”
After the vision of these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth. The angels were holding the four winds of the earth to keep them from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.