There is no doubt that it is a hard time to be Greek. Monday morning, the surely bewildered population emerged from a weekend of ever-escalating revelations. At 1 a.m. on Saturday, the prime minister announced on national television that a referendum would be held July 5 on the bailout terms that had been offered by Greece's creditors. Later that day, Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem announced that Greece's bailout would not be extended beyond June 30; reports emerged of (presumably Greek) journalists leaving the news conference in tears. Then on Sunday, the European Central Bank announced that it would freeze the amount of liquidity assistance the Greek central bank could offer national banks, and the day closed with the announcement that these banks would not be opening again until after the referendum.

And so the week is now framed by the momentous decision that waits at its end. The weighty responsibility is not being made any easier by the politicking about what the referendum actually means. In the first place, the actual referendum question is framed in such a way as to be almost unintelligible to anyone but a well-informed specialist, asking voters to pass judgment on whether or not two complex documents should be accepted. To add to the confusion, the two sides are trying to twist the meaning of the vote to suit their own needs, with the result being that voters are presumably left wondering who is to be believed. If the government is right, Greek voters are deciding whether the creditors' offer is fair. If they believe it is not, they should vote "no," to empower the government to return to Brussels and restart negotiations for a better offer. But since Saturday, the creditors have been intimating that the offer on the table will not be improved and that any "no" vote would also be a vote against Europe, with the public having to face the likely consequences — a Grexit.

To clear up the confusion a little, we are listing three possible outcomes from the referendum that broadly back up the creditors' suggestion that the July 5 vote is a referendum on eurozone membership.

1. In the event of a "no" vote, a Grexit looks highly likely. The Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza party, which dominates the governing coalition, is made up of a disparate group of leftist politicians ranging from moderate to extreme in their views. The idealistic tendencies of the extreme wing, represented in the Cabinet by Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, have been somewhat muzzled, precisely because the Syriza government was voted into power with a mandate to negotiate strongly while remaining with the euro. If the Greek people were to vote against the creditors' offer at this fraught stage — with banks closed and a significant debt repayment to the European Central Bank looming on July 20 — and following extensive indications from the European side that such a vote would quite possibly mean a Grexit, these elements surely would interpret it as a sign that these shackles have been removed. It would be much harder for the moderates to resist the argument that the unsuccessful negotiations could now be taken to their ultimate conclusion: Grexit.

2. In the event of a "yes" vote, it would be hard for any democratically elected government not to strike a deal, so a Grexit would likely be avoided for now. However, that government could take one of two shapes, the first being a new administration. On Saturday, Dijsselbloem intimated that Greece's creditors would struggle to strike a deal with a government that had advocated a "no" vote, since that government would not be fully invested in the reform process. If this is the case, the creditors could try to use the momentum following a "yes" vote to encourage a change of government in Greece, perhaps delaying a settlement until the change had taken place, though it would be a delicate process given Greece's precarious position at the moment. Discussions have arisen about the possibility that the government would be forced to resign following a "yes" vote, since it would be seen to have lost, though Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was ambiguous on the subject when he was asked on Monday. The main problem with this scenario is the lack of clear alternatives to the Syriza government, with the other main contenders either being even more distasteful to the Europeans, such as fascists and communists, or having already been discredited in the eyes of the Greek public.

3. The other possible shape the Greek government could take after a "yes" vote is the same as its current form with some alterations. This possibility might actually have been Tsipras' plan in the first place. With Greece's creditors having proved to be intractable in negotiations over the past five months, Tsipras is trapped. The creditors have refused to shift their demands, the public has wanted to remain in the eurozone, and members of Tsipras' party have wished to stay true to their ideologies no matter the cost. In the scenario, Tsipras uses the public referendum as a weapon against the ideologues in his party, presenting the "yes" vote as a fait accompli, while protecting his own credibility in Syriza by campaigning hard for a "no" vote. This would be a difficult strategy to emerge from with success, since several of the more radical Syriza members might choose to resign rather than be part of an accommodating government. Tsipras would have to first persuade other political parties to form a new coalition with him, then persuade the creditors to strike a deal with a prime minister who had campaigned against it. It is an arduous strategy, but it might be the only available path out of the trap he faces.

Thus, Greece's population faces a difficult decision. A Stratfor analyst currently in Athens reports that the city's mood is more gloomy than defiant. Greeks are unable to withdraw their money from the banks, and they face a confusing and yet massively important decision at the end of the week, beyond which lies the ominous unknown. Opinion polls have consistently hovered around the 65 percent mark for staying with the euro. A "yes" vote would provide a clear safety-first option, and that appears to be the most likely eventuality, with disaster averted at the last minute. If this is the case, the question mark will hover over Tsipras and whether he is capable of averting his own personal disaster, or whether the Syriza experiment will have run its course for the time being.

But whatever the fate of Tsipras' government, a "yes" vote and a subsequent deal with the creditors will not eliminate the forces that produced the situation in the first place. Before long, Europe will be back at this now-familiar point, and with each cycle the pressure will build. This may not be the moment for Grexit, but that is not to say that it will never arrive.