The 144 000 people on Mount_Zion
1Then I looked and I saw the Lamb standing on Mount_Zion. There were 144 000 people with Him. The name of the Lamb and the name of the Father were written on the foreheads of all those people. 2Then I heard the people sing. Their voices were as loud as the noise of flooding water in a river and like lightning and thunder and like the sound of people playing harps. 3They sang a new song before the throne of God and before the 4 living_beings and the elders. Only the 144 000 people could learn that song, and no other people could learn it. This was because God had paid for their sins and He had saved them. 4They did not live immoral lives, and they kept themselves pure. They went with the Lamb everywhere He went. God paid to save them from all people. They were the first people to belong to God and to the Lamb. 5They never told lies, and they have done nothing wrong.
God will judge everyone
6I saw another angel flying high up in the sky. He had a message of Good_News that stays forever, and he had to tell it to the people of the earth, the people of all lands, tribes, languages and nations. 7The angel shouted_loudly and said: ‘You must respect and honour God, because He is going to judge the people now. You must worship Him who made the heaven and the earth, the sea and the fountains.’
8There was a 2nd angel who came. He shouted and said: ‘Babylon, the big city, is defeated and destroyed. Babylon was like a bad woman who lived sinfully and made the people of other nations do the same bad things as she did.’
9There was a 3rd angel who came. He shouted_loudly and said: ‘God will punish the people who worship the beast and his idol, the people who have the mark of the beast on their foreheads or on their hands. 10God is angry with them. He will punish them and He will make them drink from the cup_of_suffering. He will make them suffer and punish them with fire and sulphur. God's angels and the Lamb will look and see it when this happens. 11The smoke and the fire will burn them forever and ever. They will never rest, not in the day or at night. This is what will happen to everyone who worships the beast and his idol, and to everyone who has the mark of the name of the beast.’
12The people who belong to God must be patient when they suffer. These are the people who do what God's laws say and who keep on believing in Jesus.
13Then I heard the voice of Someone speaking in heaven. He said: ‘You must write down: “From now on the Lord will be good to all those who belong to Him when they die.” ’
The Holy_Spirit said: ‘Yes, they will rest now. Their suffering is over. They have done a lot of good things and God will reward them.’
The harvest of the people on earth
14I looked and I saw a white cloud and there was Someone sitting on the cloud. He looked like the Son of man. He had a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15I saw another angel. He came out of the temple in heaven. He shouted_loudly to the Person who was sitting on the cloud and he said: ‘Now is the time to punish the people. You must use your sickle and start to cut them like people who cut wheat. The harvest of the people on earth is ripe.’ 16Then the Person who sat on the cloud took his sickle and He moved it over the earth and He cut down the harvest.
17Another angel came out of the temple in heaven. He also had a sharp sickle in his hand. 18Another angel came from the altar in the temple in heaven. This was the angel who rules over all the fires. He shouted to the angel with the sickle and said: ‘Now is the time to punish the people. The people on earth are like grapes. The grapes are ripe. Take your sickle and cut them off and bring them in like the workers that harvest grapes from a vineyard.’
19The angel took his sickle and he moved it over the earth and he cut off all the grapes. He threw them all into a big wine-press, the wine-press where God punishes people because He is angry with them. 20The wine-press was outside the city and the angel trampled the grapes in the wine-press. The blood flowed out of the wine-press. It was so deep that it flowed up to the mouths of the horses. The blood flowed 1 600 stadioi far.
