It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you. These things have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Angels desire to look into these things.

and

A stone to stumble over,
and a rock to trip over.

They stumble because they disobey the message; they were destined for this.

Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that in a case where they speak against you as those who do what is evil, they will, by observing your good works, glorify God on the day of visitation.

In the same way, wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, even if some disobey the Christian message, they may be won over without a message by the way their wives live

when they observe your pure, reverent lives.

But even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear or be disturbed,

So they are surprised that you don’t plunge with them into the same flood of wild living—and they slander you.

They will give an account to the One who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.

For this reason the gospel was also preached to those who are now dead, so that, although they might be judged by men in the fleshly realm, they might live by God in the spiritual realm.

Based on the gift each one has received, use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves.

They will exploit you in their greed with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.

especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority.

Bold, arrogant people! They do not tremble when they blaspheme the glorious ones;

But these people, like irrational animals—creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed—speak blasphemies about things they don’t understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed,

suffering harm as the payment for unrighteousness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, delighting in their deceptions as they feast with you.

They have gone astray by abandoning the straight path and have followed the path of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness

For by uttering boastful, empty words, they seduce, with fleshly desires and debauchery, people who have barely escaped from those who live in error.

They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, since people are enslaved to whatever defeats them.

For if, having escaped the world’s impurity through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in these things and defeated, the last state is worse for them than the first.

saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they have been since the beginning of creation.”

They willfully ignore this: Long ago the heavens and the earth were brought about from water and through water by the word of God.

He speaks about these things in all his letters in which there are some matters that are hard to understand. The untaught and unstable twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.

They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them.

Many deceivers have gone out into the world; they do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.

They have testified to your love in front of the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God,

since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans.

For some men, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into promiscuity and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

In the same way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them committed sexual immorality and practiced perversions, just as angels did, and serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

But these people blaspheme anything they don’t understand. What they know by instinct like unreasoning animals—they destroy themselves with these things.

Woe to them! For they have traveled in the way of Cain, have abandoned themselves to the error of Balaam for profit, and have perished in Korah’s rebellion.

These are the ones who are like dangerous reefs at your love feasts. They feast with you, nurturing only themselves without fear. They are waterless clouds carried along by winds; trees in late autumn—fruitless, twice dead, pulled out by the roots;

to execute judgment on all
and to convict them
of all their ungodly acts
that they have done in an ungodly way,
and of all the harsh things ungodly sinners
have said against Him.

they told you, “In the end time there will be scoffers walking according to their own ungodly desires.”

I know your affliction and poverty, yet you are rich. I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

Look! I will throw her into a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her practices.

I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who haven’t known the deep things of Satan—as they say—I do not put any other burden on you.

But you have a few people in Sardis who have not defiled their clothes, and they will walk with Me in white, because they are worthy.

Take note! I will make those from the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews and are not, but are lying—note this—I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and they will know that I have loved you.

Each of the four living creatures had six wings; they were covered with eyes around and inside. Day and night they never stop, saying:

Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God, the Almighty,
who was, who is, and who is coming.

Our Lord and God,
You are worthy to receive
glory and honor and power,
because You have created all things,
and because of Your will
they exist and were created.

And they sang a new song:

You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because You were slaughtered,
and You redeemed people
for God by Your blood
from every tribe and language
and people and nation.

You made them a kingdom
and priests to our God,
and they will reign on the earth.

They said with a loud voice:

The Lamb who was slaughtered is worthy
to receive power and riches
and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and blessing!

When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the people slaughtered because of God’s word and the testimony they had.

They cried out with a loud voice: “Lord, the One who is holy and true, how long until You judge and avenge our blood from those who live on the earth?”

So a white robe was given to each of them, and they were told to rest a little while longer until the number would be completed of their fellow slaves and their brothers, who were going to be killed just as they had been.

And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,

After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were robed in white with palm branches in their hands.

And they cried out in a loud voice:

Salvation belongs to our God,
who is seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb!

All the angels stood around the throne, the elders, and the four living creatures, and they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God,

Then one of the elders asked me, “Who are these people robed in white, and where did they come from?”

I said to him, “Sir, you know.”

Then he told me:

These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.
They washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.

For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and they serve Him day and night in His sanctuary.
The One seated on the throne will shelter them:

They will no longer hunger;
they will no longer thirst;
the sun will no longer strike them,
nor will any heat.

The name of the star is Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood. So, many of the people died from the waters, because they had been made bitter.

They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green plant, or any tree, but only people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads.

They were not permitted to kill them but were to torment them for five months; their torment is like the torment caused by a scorpion when it strikes a man.

In those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.

they had hair like women’s hair; their teeth were like lions’ teeth;

they had chests like iron breastplates; the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses rushing into battle;

and they had tails with stingers like scorpions, so that with their tails they had the power to harm people for five months.

They had as their king the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon.

For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails, which resemble snakes, have heads, and they inflict injury with them.

And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

But exclude the courtyard outside the sanctuary. Don’t measure it, because it is given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for 42 months.

I will empower my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth.”

These men have the power to close up the sky so that it does not rain during the days of their prophecy. They also have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every plague whenever they want.

When they finish their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, conquer them, and kill them.

But after 3½ days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet. So great fear fell on those who saw them.

Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” They went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them.

They conquered him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not love their lives
in the face of death.

They worshiped the dragon because he gave authority to the beast. And they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to wage war against him?”

They sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders, but no one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.

These are the ones not defiled with women, for they have kept their virginity. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They were redeemed from the human race as the firstfruits for God and the Lamb.

No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.

They sang the song of God’s servant Moses and the song of the Lamb:

Great and awe-inspiring are Your works,
Lord God, the Almighty;
righteous and true are Your ways,
King of the Nations.

The third poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood.

Because they poured out
the blood of the saints and the prophets,
You also gave them blood to drink;
they deserve it!

and people were burned by the intense heat. So they blasphemed the name of God, who had the power over these plagues, and they did not repent and give Him glory.

and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, yet they did not repent of their actions.

For they are spirits of demons performing signs, who travel to the kings of the whole world to assemble them for the battle of the great day of God, the Almighty.

“Look, I am coming like a thief. The one who is alert and remains clothed so that he may not go around naked and people see his shame is blessed.”

So they assembled them at the place called in Hebrew, Armagedon.

Enormous hailstones, each weighing about 100 pounds, fell from the sky on people, and they blasphemed God for the plague of hail because that plague was extremely severe.

The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up from the abyss and go to destruction. Those who live on the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast that was, and is not, and will be present again.

They are also seven kings: Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he comes, he must remain for a little while.

The 10 horns you saw are 10 kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they will receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.

These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.

The 10 horns you saw, and the beast, will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, devour her flesh, and burn her up with fire.

The kings of the earth who have committed sexual immorality and lived luxuriously with her will weep and mourn over her when they see the smoke of her burning.

They will stand far off in fear of her torment, saying:

Woe, woe, the great city,
Babylon, the mighty city!
For in a single hour
your judgment has come.

The fruit you craved has left you.
All your splendid and glamorous things are gone;
they will never find them again.

as they watched the smoke from her burning and kept crying out: “Who is like the great city?”

They threw dust on their heads and kept crying out, weeping, and mourning:

Woe, woe, the great city,
where all those who have ships on the sea
became rich from her wealth,
for in a single hour she was destroyed.

A second time they said:

Hallelujah!
Her smoke ascends forever and ever!

Then I saw thrones, and people seated on them who were given authority to judge. I also saw the people who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of God’s word, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and who had not accepted the mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with the Messiah for 1,000 years.

Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of the Messiah, and they will reign with Him for 1,000 years.