Parables of Judgment: Chapter 24 closed with a parable warning what will happen to servants who are unfaithful while the master is away. The same general theme continues throughout chapter 25. Like the foolish young women of verses 1–13, they will be excluded from the marriage feast; like the worthless servant who buries his talent, they will be thrown outside into the darkness (vv. 14–30); and like the “goats” who do not respond to the needy, they will suffer the fate of the devil and his angels (vv. 31–46). The clear-cut distinction between the two groups reminds us of the parable with which Jesus closed his Sermon on the Mount (7:24–27, the wise man who built on rock and the foolish man who built on sand). Both the first and the last of the five discourses in Matthew end with the same e…