Revelation 17 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~AD 95, near the end of the emperor Domitian's reign
Location
Written from Patmos to churches in the Roman province of Asia, with the vision centred on the city of Rome
Audience
Seven Christian congregations in western Asia Minor
Situation
An angel carries John into a wilderness to see a woman dressed in purple and scarlet riding a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns. The angel explains that the seven heads are seven hills and seven kings, and that the beast and its allied kings will turn on the woman and destroy her.
Key Background
Rome was famously built on seven hills, a detail so well known that Roman coins and poetry used it as shorthand for the city, so the first readers would not have missed the identification. Purple and scarlet cloth, gold, and pearls were the luxury imports that flowed into Rome through its provinces, and the goblet in her hand pictures a city intoxicated by its own wealth and by the blood of those it executed. Naming Rome directly in writing was dangerous, which is one reason apocalyptic writers used coded imagery that insiders could decode and censors could not easily prosecute.
Then one of the seven angels who carried the seven bowls came over and said to me, "Come here -- I'll show you the of the notorious who sits over many
The kings of the earth with and the people of the earth got drunk on the wine of
Then the angel carried me away in a into the wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a covered in that with and
The woman was dressed in and glittering with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held a in her hand, filled with -- the filth of her sexual corruption.
On her forehead was written a name -- a the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Disgusting Things of the Earth."
I could see that the woman was drunk, drunk on the blood of the blood of those who about Jesus. When I saw her, I was
The angel said to me, "Why are you so stunned? I'll explain the mystery of the woman and the beast she rides -- the one with seven heads and ten horns.
The beast you saw once existed, does not exist now, but is about to come up out of the -- and then go to its The people living on earth whose names have not been written in the of since the creation of the world will be amazed when they see the beast, because it once existed, does not exist now, and yet will come.
This calls for a mind with wisdom: The heads represent where the woman sits. They also represent kings.
Five of them have fallen, one currently rules, and the last one hasn't come yet -- but when he does, he'll only stay for a short time.
The beast that once existed but no longer does -- he is an eighth king, yet he belongs to the seven, and he is heading for destruction.
The ten horns you saw represent ten kings who haven't received their kingdoms yet but will receive authority to rule alongside the beast for
They are all united in one purpose -- to hand over their power and authority to the beast.
They will wage war against the but the will defeat them because he is of and of -- and those with him are the the and the
Then the angel said to me, "The waters you saw, where the prostitute sits, represent peoples, crowds, nations, and languages.
The beast and the ten horns you saw -- they will turn on the prostitute. They will strip her bare, devour her flesh, and burn what's left with fire.
Because it their to carry out his purpose by agreeing together to hand over their royal authority to the beast -- until are
The woman you saw represents the that rules over the kings of the earth."