Write therefore the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will happen hereafter;

because you have kept my precept about patience, I also will keep you in the time of persecution, which shall happen to all the world, to try the inhabitants of the earth.

After these things I looked and saw a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, like a trumpet speaking with me, was one saying, "Come up here, and I will show you the things which must happen after this."

Then I heard the angel [in charge] of the waters saying, "You are just, [you] who are [in the present] and who were [in the past], O Holy One, because you have judged [that these things should happen].

And there occurred lightnings, and thunders, and voices. And a great earthquake occurred, such as did not happen from that time men came to be upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, so great.

the light of a lamp
will never shine in you again;
and the voice of a groom and bride
will never be heard in you again.
All this will happen
because your merchants
were the nobility of the earth,
because all the nations were deceived
by your sorcery,

He said to me, "These words are faithful and true. The Lord God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel to show to his bondservants the things which must happen soon."

Then the angel said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near [i.e., for the events of its prophecies to begin to happen].