Calculating The End Of Days

Thus said Rabbi Yochanan: In the generation in which the son of David comes, the scholars will dwindle, and as for the rest, their eyes will fail from grief and sighing, and many troubles and harsh decrees will be renewed; before the first has passed, a second hastens to come. Our Rabbis taught: In the week of years during which the son of David comes, in the first year this verse will be fulfilled: "And I will cause it to rain upon one city, and upon another city I will not cause it to rain" (Amos 4:7). In the second, arrows of famine will be sent forth. In the third, a great famine, and men and women and children will die, the pious and the men of good deeds, and the Torah will be forgotten by those who study it. In the fourth, there will be plenty that is not plenty. In the fifth, there will be great plenty, and they will eat and drink and rejoice, and the Torah will return to those who study it. In the sixth, sounds. In the seventh, wars. At the conclusion of the seventh, the son of David comes. Rav Yosef said: But there have been many weeks of years like this, and yet he has not come! Abaye said: Were there sounds in the sixth and wars in the seventh? And furthermore, were they in their proper order? Rav Katina said: Six thousand years the world will exist, and for one it will be desolate, as it is said: "And the LORD alone shall be exalted on that day" (Isaiah 2:11). It was taught in the school of Elijah: Six thousand years the world will exist: two thousand of chaos, two thousand of Torah, and two thousand the days of the Messiah.