Revelation 17

₁One of the 7 angels came to me. It was one of the 7 angels who had brought the punishment that God gave in the 7 bowls. The angel said to me: ‘You must come with me. I will show you how God will judge the big prostitute, who sits at the place where there is a lot of water. ₂All the kings of the earth slept with her and had immoral lives. Yes, the people of the earth had sex with her. She was like wine that made people drunk and they enjoyed it.’

₃The power of the Spirit came over me and the angel took me to the desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a beast that was red as blood. There were names written all over the beast and the names said bad things about God. The beast had 7 heads and 10 horns. ₄The woman had purple and red clothes, and she was wearing a lot of gold, gemstones and pearls. In her hand was a golden cup, and the golden cup was full of bad, impure and immoral things. ₅There was a name written on her forehead. The name was: ‘This is a secret. I am the big city of Babylon, the mother of all prostitutes, the mother of all bad things on earth’.

₆I saw that the woman was drunk because she had drunk the blood of the people who belonged to God, the people who had died because they believed in Jesus. I was very surprised when I saw the woman. ₇But the angel asked me: ‘Why are you surprised? I will tell you what the meaning is of the woman and the beast that she is sitting on, that has 7 heads and 10 horns. ₈You saw a beast who was alive before but he is not alive now. He will come out of the underworld and then God will kill him. The people on earth will be surprised when they see the beast, because the beast was alive before, and he is not alive now, but he will live again. Who will be surprised when they see the beast? All the people whose names are not written in the book_of_life. God wrote the names of some people in the book_of_life before He made the earth.

₉You must be wise if you want to understand this secret: The 7 heads are the 7 mountains on which the woman sits. They are also 7 kings. ₁₀Of these 7 kings, 5 have already died and the 6th king is ruling now. The 7th king will come later but God will let him rule for only a short time.

₁₁The beast that lived before, and who is not alive now, is the 8th king, but he is also one of the first 7 kings. God will kill him. ₁₂You saw 10 horns. Those are 10 kings, but they have not started to rule yet. They will start to rule over people but they will rule for only one hour and they will rule with the beast. ₁₃All of them think the same and they will do anything that they can to help the beast. ₁₄They will go to war_against the Lamb but the Lamb will defeat them, because the Lamb is the Lord of everyone. He rules and He is the King of all kings. He chose people to belong to Him and those people will always believe in Him, and will win with Him.’

₁₅The angel said to me: ‘You saw the prostitute sitting at the place where there is a lot of water. The water is the people from a lot of nations and tribes and lands and languages. ₁₆You saw 10 horns. The 10 horns and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will take away everything that she has and they will leave her naked, then they will eat her and burn her with fire, ₁₇because God will make them do what He wants. He will make them all think the same and they will give their power to the beast so he will rule. The beast will rule until everything happens as God has said it must happen.’

₁₈Then the angel said: ‘You saw a woman. She is the big city that rules over all the kings on earth.’