In the 24th chapter of Matthew Jesus clearly describes the dreadful scene. He says--"Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the house top not come down to take any thing out of his house. And woe unto them that are with children and to them that give suck in those days!" [Why? Because they could not remain in the mountains during the period that the city was besieged by the Romans.] "But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter neither on the Sabbath day." [Why? Because in the winter you would perish with cold--and if your flight from the city be on the Sabbath day, the Jews will stone you to death for traveling more than three miles.] "For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened there should no flesh be saved;" [Saved from what? Ans. From death.] "but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." That is, for the sake of the christians who fled to the mountains, God shortened the days of the siege. Let us hear Dr. Adam Clarke, a Methodist Commentator, on this--"Josephus computes the number of those who perished in the siege at eleven hundred thousand, besides those who were slain in other places; and if the Romans had gone on destroying in this manner, the whole nation of the Jews would in a short time have been entirely extirpated [destroy completely, as if down to the roots]; but for the sake of the elect, the Jews, that _they_ might not be utterly destroyed, and for the christians particularly, the days were shortened. These partly through the fury of the zealots on the one hand, and the hatred of the Romans on the other; and partly through the difficulty of subsisting in the mountains without houses or provisions, would in all probability, have all been destroyed, either by sword or famine, if the days had not been shortened." Let us hear Clarke explain how these christians were _scarcely_ saved. "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." "It is very remarkable that not a single christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, though there were many there when Cestius Gallus invested the city; and had he persevered in the siege, he would soon have rendered himself master of it; but when he unexpectedly and unaccountably raised the siege, the christians took that opportunity to escape." Clarke says "_unto the end_" means "to the destruction of the Jewish polity." Therefore when Peter says, the righteous are _scarcely saved_, he had reference to the dreadful judgment which was coming upon "the wicked and ungodly" inhabitants of Jerusalem for shedding the blood of the righteous, and from this destruction the christians escaped with their lives in their hands to the mountains of Judea for safety as Jesus had directed them. They but just escape-- they were _scarcely_ saved.