Revelation 14

¹ Next in my vision I saw Mount Zion, and standing on it a Lamb who had with him a hundred and forty-four thousand people, all with his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.

² I heard a sound coming out of the sky like the sound of the ocean or the roar of thunder; it seemed to be the sound of harpists playing their harps.

³ There in front of the throne they were singing a new hymn in the presence of the four animals and the elders, a hymn that could only be learnt by the hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the world.

⁴ These are the ones who have kept their virginity[*a] and not been defiled with women; they follow the Lamb wherever he goes; they have been redeemed from amongst men to be the first-fruits for God[*b] and for the Lamb.

⁵ They never allowed a lie to pass their lips[*c] and no fault can be found in them.

⁶ Then I saw another angel, flying high overhead, sent to announce the Good News of eternity to all who live on the earth, every nation, race, language and tribe.

⁷ He was calling, ‘Fear God and praise him, because the time has come for him to sit in judgement; worship the maker of heaven and earth and sea[*d] and every water-spring’.

⁸ A second angel followed him, calling, ‘Babylon has fallen, Babylon the Great has fallen,[*e] Babylon which gave the whole world the wine of God’s anger to drink’.

⁹ A third angel followed, shouting aloud, ‘All those who worship the beast and his statue, or have had themselves branded on the hand or forehead,

¹⁰ will be made to drink the wine of God’s fury which is ready, undiluted, in his cup of anger; in fire and brimstone[*f] they will be tortured in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb

¹¹ and the smoke of their torture will go up for ever[*g] and ever. There will be no respite, night or day, for those who worshipped the beast or its statue or accepted branding with its name.’

¹² This is why there must be constancy in the saints who keep the commandments of God and faith in Jesus.

¹³ Then I heard a voice from heaven say to me, ‘Write down: Happy are those who die in the Lord! Happy indeed, the Spirit says; now they can rest for ever after their work, since their good deeds go with them.’

¹⁴ Now in my vision I saw a white cloud and, sitting on it, one like a son of man with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.

¹⁵ Then another angel came out of the sanctuary, and shouted aloud to the one sitting on the cloud, ‘Put your sickle in and reap: harvest time has come and the harvest of the earth is ripe'[*h].

¹⁶ Then the one sitting on the cloud set his sickle to work on the earth, and the earth’s harvest was reaped.

¹⁷ Another angel, who also carried a sharp sickle, came out of the temple in heaven,

¹⁸ and the angel in charge of the fire left the altar and shouted aloud to the one with the sharp sickle, ‘Put your sickle in and cut all the bunches off the vine of the earth; all its grapes are ripe’.

¹⁹ So the angel set his sickle to work on the earth and harvested the whole vintage of the earth and put it into a huge winepress, the winepress of God’s anger,

²⁰ outside the city, where it was trodden until the blood that came out of the winepress was up to the horses’ bridles as far away as sixteen hundred furlongs.