Revelation 11

¹ I was given a long cane as a measuring rod, and I was told, ‘Go and measure God’s sanctuary, and the altar, and the people who worship there;

² but leave out the outer court and do not measure it, because it has been handed over to pagans – they will trample on the holy city for forty-two months.[*a]

³ But I shall send my two witnesses to prophesy for those twelve hundred and sixty days, wearing sackcloth.

⁴ These are the two olive trees[*b] and the two lamps that stand before the Lord of the world.[*c]

⁵ Fire can come from their mouths and consume their enemies if anyone tries to harm them; and if anybody does try to harm them he will certainly be killed in this way.

⁶ They are able to lock up the sky so that it does not rain as long as they are prophesying; they are able to turn water into blood and strike the whole world with any plague as often as they like.

⁷ When they have completed their witnessing, the beast that comes out of the Abyss is going to make war on them and overcome them[*d] and kill them.

⁸ Their corpses will lie in the main street of the Great City known by the symbolic names Sodom and Egypt, in which their Lord was crucified.[*e]

⁹ Men out of every people, race, language and nation will stare at their corpses, for three-and-a-half days, not letting them be buried,

¹⁰ and the people of the world will be glad about it and celebrate the event by giving presents to each other, because these two prophets have been a plague to the people of the world.’

¹¹ After the three-and-a-half days, God breathed life into them and they stood up,[*f] and everybody who saw it happen was terrified;

¹² then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, ‘Come up here’, and while their enemies were watching, they went up to heaven in a cloud.

¹³ Immediately, there was a violent earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand persons[*g] were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors, overcome with fear, could only praise the God of heaven.

¹⁴ That was the second of the troubles; the third is to come quickly after it.

¹⁵ Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and voices could be heard shouting in heaven, calling, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever’.

¹⁶ The twenty-four elders, enthroned in the presence of God, prostrated themselves and touched the ground with their foreheads worshipping God

¹⁷ with these words, ‘We give thanks to you, Almighty Lord God, He-Is-and-He-Was, for using your great power and beginning your reign.

¹⁸ The nations were seething with rage[*h] and now the time has come for your own anger, and for the dead to be judged, and for your servants the prophets, for the saints and for all who worship you, small or great, to be rewarded. The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth.’

¹⁹ Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake, and violent hail.