Revelation 17

¹ One of the seven angels that had the seven bowls came to speak to me, and said, ‘Come here and I will show you the punishment given to the famous prostitute[*a] who rules enthroned beside abundant waters[*,]b

² the one with whom all the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and who has made all the population of the world drunk with the wine of her adultery’.[*c]

³ He took me in spirit to a desert, and there I saw a woman riding a scarlet beast which had seven heads and ten horns and had blasphemous titles written all over it.

⁴ The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and glittered with gold and jewels and pearls, and she was holding a gold winecup filled with the disgusting filth of her fornication;

⁵ on her forehead was written a name, a cryptic name: ‘Babylon the Great, the mother of all the prostitutes and all the filthy practices on the earth’.

⁶ I saw that she was drunk, drunk with the blood of the saints, and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I was completely mystified.

⁷ The angel said to me, ‘Don’t you understand? Now I will tell you the meaning of this woman, and of the beast she is riding, with the seven heads and the ten horns.

⁸ ‘The beast you have seen once was and now is not;[*d] he is yet to come up from the Abyss, but only to go to his destruction. And the people of the world, whose names have not been written since the beginning of the world in the book of life, will think it miraculous when they see how the beast once was and now is not and is still to come.

⁹ Here there is need for cleverness, for a shrewd mind; the seven heads are the seven hills, and the woman is sitting on them.

¹⁰ The seven heads are also seven emperors. Five of them have already gone, one is here now, and one is yet to come; once here, he must stay for a short while.

¹¹ The beast, who once was and now is not, is at the same time the eighth and one of the seven, and he is going to his destruction.

¹² The ten horns are ten kings[*e] who have not yet been given their royal power but will have royal authority only for a single hour and in association with the beast.

¹³ They are all of one mind in putting their strength and their powers at the beast’s disposal,

¹⁴ and they will go to war against the Lamb; but the Lamb is the Lord of lords and the King of kings,[*f] and he will defeat them and they will be defeated by his followers, the called, the chosen, the faithful.’

¹⁵ The angel continued, ‘The waters you saw, beside which the prostitute was sitting, are all the peoples, the populations, the nations and the languages.

¹⁶ But the time will come when the ten horns and the beast will turn against the prostitute, and strip off her clothes and leave her naked;[*g] then they will eat her flesh and burn the remains in the fire.

¹⁷ In fact, God influenced their minds to do what he intended, to agree together to put their royal powers at the beast’s disposal until the time when God’s words should be fulfilled.

¹⁸ The woman you saw is the great city which has authority over all the rulers on earth.’