6:14-16) None whatsoever! As regards anyone practicing what is wrong within the congregation of Jehovah’s dedicated, baptized people, Paul says: “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”​—1 Corinthians 5:13.

37. In this “time of the end,” what should be done with “wickedness” as respects the God-given spiritual estate of Jehovah’s worshipers?

³⁷ During this “time of the end,” during this “conclusion of the system of things,” let wickedness of all kinds be removed from the God-given spiritual estate of Jehovah’s worshipers. Let it be kept out and confined to the realm of Babylon the Great and her political, military and commercial patrons. There let it stay fixed, as if residing in a firmly established house. We want no fellowship and association with this symbolic woman Wickedness. Leave her to her destruction along with Babylon the Great and all rebels against Jehovah’s universal sovereignty “in the land of Shinar.”

38. So since the beginning of the building of pure worship at Jehovah’s temple in 1919 C.E., what removal has been in progress, and how did Jesus foretell such a thing in his parable of the wheat and the weeds?

³⁸ Already since the restoring and rebuilding of Jehovah’s pure worship at his spiritual temple was begun in 1919 C.E., this removal of wickedness as if by the two stork-winged women has been in progress. It is just as Jesus Christ foretold for this “conclusion of the system of things,” saying: “The harvest is a conclusion of a system of things, and the reapers are angels. Therefore, just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be in the conclusion of the system of things. The Son of man will send forth his angels, and they will collect out from his kingdom all things that cause stumbling and persons who are doing lawlessness, and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be.” (Matthew 13:39-42) When Babylon the Great and her worldly paramours are destroyed as with fire in the approaching “great tribulation,” their weeping and gnashing of teeth will cease at their destruction.​—Matthew 24:21, 22; 25:41, 46.

39. What, then, is the course of loyalty for us to persist in, while taking to heart Psalm 145:20?

³⁹ All we who have left Babylon the Great and her worldly paramours in the Babylonish “land of Shinar” have no reason to go back to that “wickedness” that belongs in that place of its inception. Our course of loyalty to Jehovah as the Sovereign Lord and only true God is to persist in his pure, undefiled worship at his spiritual temple under his High Priest, Jesus Christ. We take to heart what his inspired psalmist has written: “Jehovah is guarding all those loving him, but all the wicked ones he will annihilate.”​—Psalm 145:20.

Chapter 13

Chariots of God Safeguard Coronation

1. Are the chariots seen in Zechariah’s eighth vision those brought up from Egypt?

CHARIOTS make their appearance in the eighth and final vision given to the prophet Zechariah. These chariots are not any brought up from Egypt for the protection of the temple builders at Jerusalem in that year of the vision, 519 B.C.E., or the second year of the reign of King Darius I of Persia. The higher source of these more powerful chariots is revealed in the vision. Let us watch with Zechariah as they dash on the scene:

2. From between what did the chariots come forth, how many were there, and by what kind of horses were they drawn?

² “Then I raised my eyes again and saw; and, look! there were four chariots coming forth from between two mountains, and the mountains were copper mountains. In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot, black horses. And in the third chariot there were white horses; and in the fourth chariot, horses speckled, parti-colored.”​—Zechariah 6:1-3.