Matthew 24:42
Matthew 24:4242Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day on which your Lord will come.
JWs read "keep on the watch" as a standing command to remain vigilant for the imminent end of the present system, often paired with date-shaped urgency about Armageddon's nearness. Watchful living is framed as faithful service through the Watchtower's publishing arm and meeting attendance.
Jesus' command to keep on the watch is the pastoral remedy has just demanded — "no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father". Sustained watchfulness is the disposition Christ prescribed; dated alarms that have to be retracted are precisely what Jesus warned against. Use this verse to redirect the Watchtower's prediction-failure cycle (1874, 1914, 1925, 1940s, 1975) back to Christ's actual instruction. The faithful watchman keeps watching; the presumptuous watchman names dates and blames the followers when they pass.
retains "your Lord" in the NWT 2013 — the organisation does NOT insert "Jehovah" here, despite its general policy of replacing kurios with "Jehovah" in 237 New Testament occurrences. The retained "Lord" is doctrinally telling because the watching Jesus commands here is for HIS OWN return, not Jehovah's separately. Verse 44 makes the same point: "the Son of Man is coming". If the watching is for Christ's return, and the same vigilance is owed in the New Testament that the Old Testament owed Yahweh's day-of-the-Lord (; ), the parallel implies the Son shares the divine identity the Watchtower restricts to the Father.