Revelation 7

¹ Next I saw four angels, standing at the four corners of the earth[*a], holding the four winds of the world back to keep them from blowing over the land or the sea or in the trees.

² Then I saw another angel rising where the sun rises, carrying the seal of the living God; he called in a powerful voice to the four angels whose duty was to devastate land and sea,

³ ‘Wait before you do any damage on land or at sea or to the trees, until we have put the seal on the foreheads[*b] of the servants of our God’.

⁴ Then I heard how many were sealed: a hundred and forty-four thousand,[*c] out of all the tribes of Israel.

⁵ From the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand had been sealed; from the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand;

⁶ from the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand;

⁷ from the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand;

⁸ from the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand; from the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand; and from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed.

⁹ After that I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language; they were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands. They shouted aloud,

¹⁰ ‘Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’

¹¹ And all the angels who were standing in a circle round the throne, surrounding the elders and the four animals, prostrated themselves before the throne, and touched the ground with their foreheads, worshipping God with these words,

¹² ‘Amen. Praise and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength to our God for ever and ever. Amen.’

¹³ One of the elders then spoke, and asked me, ‘Do you know who these people are, dressed in white robes, and where they have come from?’

¹⁴ I answered him, ‘You can tell me, my lord’. Then he said, ‘These are the people who have been through the great persecution,[*d] and because they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb,

¹⁵ they now stand in front of God’s throne and serve him day and night in his sanctuary; and the One who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.

¹⁶ They will never hunger or thirst again; neither the sun nor scorching wind will ever plague them,

¹⁷ because the Lamb who is at the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water;[*e] and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes.[*f]