Blessed is he who reads aloud, blessed they who hear the words of this prophecy and lay to heart what is written in it; for the time is near.

his head and hair were white as wool, white as snow; his eyes flashed like fire,

I was dead and here I am alive for evermore, holding the keys that unlock death and Hades.

I have given her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual vice.

Lo, I will lay her on a sickbed, and bring her paramours into sore distress, if they do not repent of her practices;

and her children I will exterminate. So shall all the churches know that I am the searcher of the inmost heart; I will requite each of you according to what you have done.

Now remember what you received and heard, hold to it and repent. If you will not wake up, I shall come like a thief; you will not know at what hour I come upon you.

Because you have kept the word of my patient endurance, I will keep you safe through the hour of trial which is coming upon the whole world to test the dwellers on earth.

After this I looked, and there was a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice I had heard talking with me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must come to pass after this."

the stars of the sky dropped to earth as a fig tree shaken by a gale sheds her unripe figs,

And when he opened the seventh seal, silence reigned in heaven for about half-an-hour.

their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' fangs;

So the four angels were unloosed, who had been kept ready for that hour and day and month and year, to kill the third of men.

But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands and give up worshipping daemons and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which cannot either see or hear or stir;

and heard a loud voice from heaven telling them, "Come up here." So up to heaven they went in a cloud, before the eyes of their enemies.

At that hour a great earthquake took place, a tenth of the City was destroyed, and seven thousand souls perished in the earthquake: the rest were awestruck, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

And a great portent was seen in heaven, a woman clad in the sun ??with the moon under her feet, and a tiara of twelve stars on her head;

she was with child, crying in the pangs of travail, in anguish for her delivery.

his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and flung them to the earth. And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was on the point of being delivered, to devour her child as soon as it was born.

She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to shepherd all the nations with an iron flail; her child was caught up to God and to his throne,

and she herself fled to the desert, where a place has been prepared for her by God, in which she is to be nourished for twelve hundred and sixty days.

but the woman was given the two wings of a great eagle for her flight to the desert, to her appointed place, where she is nourished for a Time, two Times, and half a Time, safe from the serpent.

Then from his mouth the serpent poured water after the woman like a river, to sweep her away with a flood;

So, enraged at the woman, the dragon went off to wage war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep God's commandments and hold the testimony of Jesus.

he cried aloud, "Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water."

And another, a second angel followed, crying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her vice!"

with whom the kings of earth have committed vice, and the dwellers on earth have been drunk with the wine of her vice."

The woman was clad in purple and scarlet, her ornaments were of gold and precious stones and pearls, in her hand was a golden cup full of all abominations and the impurities of her vice,

and on her forehead a name was written by way of symbol, "Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of all abominations on earth."

Then I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus; and as I looked at her I marvelled greatly.

But the angel said to me, "Why marvel? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman, and of the Beast with the seven heads and the ten horns who carries her.

As for the ten horns you have seen, they are ten kings who have no royal power as yet, but receive royal authority for an hour along with the Beast;

As for the ten horns you have seen, they and the Beast will hate the harlot, lay her waste, and strip her naked; they will devour her flesh and burn her with fire,

for all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her vice, the kings of the earth have committed vice with her, and by the wealth of her wantonness earth's traders have grown rich."

And I heard another voice from heaven crying, "Come out of her, O my people, that you share not her sins, that you partake not of her plagues:

for high as heaven her sins are heaped, and God calls her misdeeds to the reckoning.

Render to her what she rendered to others, aye, double the doom for all she has done; mix her the draught double in the cup she mixed for others.

As she gloried and played the wanton, so give her like measure of torture and tears. Since in her heart she vaunts, 'A queen I sit, no widow I, tears I shall never know,'

so shall her plagues fall in a single day, pestilence, tears, and famine: she shall be burnt with fire ??for strong is God the Lord her judge.

And the kings at the earth who committed vice and wantoned with her shall weep and wail over her, as they watch the smoke of her burning;

for fear of her torture they will stand far off, crying, 'Woe and alas, thou great city! thou strong city of Babylon! In one brief hour thy doom has come.'

And the traders of earth shall weep and wail over her; for now there is none to buy their freights,

The traders in these wares, who made rich profits from her, will stand far off for fear of her torture, weeping and wailing:

'Woe and alas, for the great city, robed in linen, in purple and scarlet, her ornaments of gold, of jewels and pearl!

And all this splendour gone in one brief hour!' And all shipmasters and sea-faring folk, sailors and all whose business lies upon the sea, stood far off

as they watched the smoke of her burning, crying, 'What city was like the great City?'

They threw dust on their heads and cried, as they wept and wailed, 'Woe and alas for the great City, where all shipmen made rich profit by her treasures! Gone, gone in one brief hour!'

O heaven, rejoice over her! Saints, apostles, prophets, rejoice! For God has avenged you on her now."

And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, of all who were slain upon earth."

True and just are his sentences of doom; he has doomed the great Harlot who destroyed earth with her vice, he has avenged on her the blood of his servants."

Again they repeated, "Hallelujah! And the smoke of her goes up for ever and ever!"

And I saw the holy City, the new Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven, all ready like a bride arrayed for her husband.

[I adjure all who hear the words of the prophecy of this book: "If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book;