<p>25:9&nbsp;<em>But the wise answered: Perhaps there will not be enough for us and you- </em>AV &quot;Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you&quot;. The translation is problematic, as reflected by the way the AV puts &ldquo;not so&rdquo; in italics. This has been added in a valiant bid to make the difficult Greek have at least some kind of sense. The idea seems to more accurately be: &lsquo;In any case there is not sufficient for us, let alone for you too&rsquo;. The only other time&nbsp;<em>arkeo ou</em>&nbsp;occurs it is translated &ldquo;not sufficient&rdquo; (Jn. 6:7); and there, the idea is &lsquo;We cannot possibly have sufficient of ourselves, only God&rsquo;s grace can provide the sufficiency&rsquo;. As it is translated in most English versions, the sense is somewhat selfish- as if the wise are too concerned for their own acceptance by the bridegroom to worry about anyone else. But I suggest the sense of the original is rather &lsquo;We ourselves hardly have any oil, we are woefully unprepared ourselves, we are going to throw ourselves onto His grace when we meet Him. It&rsquo;s not about how much oil we have. It&rsquo;s about loving Him enough and trusting His grace enough to just want to go immediately and be with Him. But if you&rsquo;re so worried about oil, well, presumably you will have to go and get some- a hard job, in the middle of the night, when the shops are all closed&rsquo;.</p><p><em>Instead, you should go-</em>&nbsp;The Greek really means &lsquo;to depart&rsquo;, and significantly, the very same word is used by the Lord in this same context when condemning people at judgment day in :41: &ldquo;Depart s.w. &ldquo;go&rdquo; from Me, you cursed&rdquo;. So the point is again established that in their response to the news of His return, the rejected have their judgment. They are asked to go and meet Him, but they depart, to try to make themselves prepared by relying upon others &ldquo;them that sell&rdquo;. Their departing from the Lord was in essence their condemnation, for condemnation is all about departing from the Lord.</p><p><em>To them that sell oil and buy some for yourselves</em>- This may well be obeyed by the foolish in the form of getting their noses down to some serious, personal Bible study for a change; or going looking for&nbsp;<em>people</em> who could sell them oil. But again, they go to others- rather than immediately to the Lord Himself. Hence His comment in :12 that they do not know Him, and therefore He doesn&rsquo;t know them. There is simply a lack of personal relationship with Him, despite their confidence that they knew the day and hour of His coming. &quot;Go... and buy&quot; is surely rhetorical- the rejected know it's too late for them to actually rectify their position, but the process of judgment day&nbsp;will show the rejected how it would have been possible to enter the Kingdom. Likewise the Lord will tell the one talent man: 'Why didn't you, for example, put the money into the bank...?'. I mentioned under&nbsp;<em>Not so</em>&hellip; that the only other time&nbsp;<em>arkeo ou</em>&nbsp;&ldquo;not enough&rdquo; occurs is when the amount of bread required was described as &ldquo;not sufficient&rdquo; (Jn. 6:7). The advice to&nbsp;<em>go and buy for yourselves</em>&nbsp;is also alluding to that same feeding miracle. The lesson then had been that no amount of bread was enough / sufficient, nor was it possible to go and buy for oneself- rather must there be total reliance upon God&rsquo;s grace in Christ. I feel the allusion or similarity is purposeful, because lack of oil didn&rsquo;t have to mean rejection by the Bridegroom. They could simply have thrown themselves upon His grace. If they were ready and eager to go and meet Him at any moment, regardless of whether they felt or externally appeared ready, then this was enough for salvation. And that, really, will be the struggle of every spiritual heart when we know the Lord has returned; our love for Him and trust in His grace must be greater than our awareness of our own unworthiness, lack of preparation and poor external appearance. Those who thought they knew the day and hour and we must ever remember that this is the context of the parable couldn&rsquo;t cope with things working out other than they had expected, needed to run to others for help, rather than to the Lord personally; and had no sense of His grace nor, in fact, any overpowering desire to simply be with Him. Rather was their own correctness of expectation the most significant self-defining issue for them. And it would appear so many &lsquo;Christians&rsquo; have fallen into this trap, becoming obsessed with chronologies of events and accuracy of prophetic interpretation, at the expense of true spirituality and direct personal relationship with the Lord.<br /><em>Buy for yourselves</em>- Literally, &lsquo;redeem yourselves&rsquo;. The whole point is that we were bought / redeemed by the Lord and not by ourselves.</p>