The Woman and the Dragon

¹Then a great and mysterious sight appeared in the sky. There was a woman, whose dress was the sun and who had the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

²She was soon to give birth, and the pains and suffering of childbirth made her cry out.

³Another mysterious sight appeared in the sky. There was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and a crown on each of his heads.

⁴With his tail he dragged a third of the stars out of the sky and threw them down to the earth. He stood in front of the woman, in order to eat her child as soon as it was born.

⁵Then she gave birth to a son, who will rule over all nations with an iron rod. But the child was snatched away and taken to God and his throne.

⁶The woman fled to the desert, to a place God had prepared for her, where she will be taken care of for 1,260 days.

⁷Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, who fought back with his angels;

⁸but the dragon was defeated, and he and his angels were not allowed to stay in heaven any longer.

⁹The huge dragon was thrown out—that ancient serpent, named the Devil, or Satan, that deceived the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and all his angels with him.

¹⁰Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now God's salvation has come! Now God has shown his power as King! Now his Messiah has shown his authority! For the one who stood before our God and accused believers day and night has been thrown out of heaven.

¹¹They won the victory over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the truth which they proclaimed; and they were willing to give up their lives and die.

¹²And so be glad, you heavens, and all you that live there! But how terrible for the earth and the sea! For the Devil has come down to you, and he is filled with rage, because he knows that he has only a little time left.”

¹³When the dragon realized that he had been thrown down to the earth, he began to pursue the woman who had given birth to the boy.

¹⁴She was given the two wings of a large eagle in order to fly to her place in the desert, where she will be taken care of for three and a half years, safe from the dragon's attack.

¹⁵And then from his mouth the dragon poured out a flood of water after the woman, so that it would carry her away.

¹⁶But the earth helped the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the water that had come from the dragon's mouth.

¹⁷The dragon was furious with the woman and went off to fight against the rest of her descendants, all those who obey God's commandments and are faithful to the truth revealed by Jesus.

¹⁸And the dragon stood on the seashore.

The Two Beasts

¹Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads; on each of its horns there was a crown, and on each of its heads there was a name that was insulting to God.

²The beast looked like a leopard, with feet like a bear's feet and a mouth like a lion's mouth. The dragon gave the beast his own power, his throne, and his vast authority.

³One of the heads of the beast seemed to have been fatally wounded, but the wound had healed. The whole earth was amazed and followed the beast.

⁴Everyone worshiped the dragon because he had given his authority to the beast. They worshiped the beast also, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who can fight against it?”

⁵The beast was allowed to make proud claims which were insulting to God, and it was permitted to have authority for forty-two months.

⁶It began to curse God, his name, the place where he lives, and all those who live in heaven.

⁷It was allowed to fight against God's people and to defeat them, and it was given authority over every tribe, nation, language, and race.

⁸All people living on earth will worship it, except those whose names were written before the creation of the world in the book of the living which belongs to the Lamb that was killed.

⁹“Listen, then, if you have ears!

¹⁰Whoever is meant to be captured will surely be captured; whoever is meant to be killed by the sword will surely be killed by the sword. This calls for endurance and faith on the part of God's people.”

¹¹Then I saw another beast, which came up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb's horns, and it spoke like a dragon.

¹²It used the vast authority of the first beast in its presence. It forced the earth and all who live on it to worship the first beast, whose wound had healed.

¹³This second beast performed great miracles; it made fire come down out of heaven to earth in the sight of everyone.

¹⁴And it deceived all the people living on earth by means of the miracles which it was allowed to perform in the presence of the first beast. The beast told them to build an image in honor of the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived.

¹⁵The second beast was allowed to breathe life into the image of the first beast, so that the image could talk and put to death all those who would not worship it.

¹⁶The beast forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, slave and free, to have a mark placed on their right hands or on their foreheads.

¹⁷No one could buy or sell without this mark, that is, the beast's name or the number that stands for the name.

¹⁸This calls for wisdom. Whoever is intelligent can figure out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for the name of someone. Its number is 666.

The Lamb and His People

¹Then I looked, and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion; with him were 144,000 people who have his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads.

²And I heard a voice from heaven that sounded like a roaring waterfall, like a loud peal of thunder. It sounded like the music made by musicians playing their harps.

³The 144,000 people stood before the throne, the four living creatures, and the elders; they were singing a new song, which only they could learn. Of the whole human race they are the only ones who have been redeemed.

⁴They are the men who have kept themselves pure by not having sexual relations with women; they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They have been redeemed from the rest of the human race and are the first ones to be offered to God and to the Lamb.

⁵They have never been known to tell lies; they are faultless.

The Three Angels

⁶Then I saw another angel flying high in the air, with an eternal message of Good News to announce to the peoples of the earth, to every race, tribe, language, and nation.

⁷He said in a loud voice, “Honor God and praise his greatness! For the time has come for him to judge all people. Worship him who made heaven, earth, sea, and the springs of water!”

⁸A second angel followed the first one, saying, “She has fallen! Great Babylon has fallen! She made all peoples drink her wine—the strong wine of her immoral lust!”

⁹A third angel followed the first two, saying in a loud voice, “Those who worship the beast and its image and receive the mark on their forehead or on their hand

¹⁰will themselves drink God's wine, the wine of his fury, which he has poured at full strength into the cup of his anger! All who do this will be tormented in fire and sulfur before the holy angels and the Lamb.

¹¹The smoke of the fire that torments them goes up forever and ever. There is no relief day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, for anyone who has the mark of its name.”

¹²This calls for endurance on the part of God's people, those who obey God's commandments and are faithful to Jesus.

¹³Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Happy are those who from now on die in the service of the Lord!” “Yes indeed!” answers the Spirit. “They will enjoy rest from their hard work, because the results of their service go with them.”

The Harvest of the Earth

¹⁴Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was what looked like a human being, with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.

¹⁵Then another angel came out from the temple and cried out in a loud voice to the one who was sitting on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap the harvest, because the time has come; the earth is ripe for the harvest!”

¹⁶Then the one who sat on the cloud swung his sickle on the earth, and the earth's harvest was reaped.

¹⁷Then I saw another angel come out of the temple in heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle.

¹⁸Then another angel, who is in charge of the fire, came from the altar. He shouted in a loud voice to the angel who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sickle, and cut the grapes from the vineyard of the earth, because the grapes are ripe!”

¹⁹So the angel swung his sickle on the earth, cut the grapes from the vine, and threw them into the wine press of God's furious anger.

²⁰The grapes were squeezed out in the wine press outside the city, and blood came out of the wine press in a flood two hundred miles long and about five feet deep.

God's Word through His Son

¹In the past God spoke to our ancestors many times and in many ways through the prophets,

²but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. He is the one through whom God created the universe, the one whom God has chosen to possess all things at the end.

³He reflects the brightness of God's glory and is the exact likeness of God's own being, sustaining the universe with his powerful word. After achieving forgiveness for the sins of all human beings, he sat down in heaven at the right side of God, the Supreme Power.

The Greatness of God's Son

⁴The Son was made greater than the angels, just as the name that God gave him is greater than theirs.

⁵For God never said to any of his angels, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” Nor did God say about any angel, “I will be his Father, and he will be my Son.”

⁶But when God was about to send his first-born Son into the world, he said, “All of God's angels must worship him.”

⁷But about the angels God said, “God makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.”

⁸About the Son, however, God said: “Your kingdom, O God, will last forever and ever! You rule over your people with justice.

⁹You love what is right and hate what is wrong. That is why God, your God, has chosen you and has given you the joy of an honor far greater than he gave to your companions.”

¹⁰He also said, “You, Lord, in the beginning created the earth, and with your own hands you made the heavens.

¹¹They will disappear, but you will remain; they will all wear out like clothes.

¹²You will fold them up like a coat, and they will be changed like clothes. But you are always the same, and your life never ends.”

¹³God never said to any of his angels: “Sit here at my right side until I put your enemies as a footstool under your feet.”

¹⁴What are the angels, then? They are spirits who serve God and are sent by him to help those who are to receive salvation.

The Great Salvation

¹That is why we must hold on all the more firmly to the truths we have heard, so that we will not be carried away.

²The message given to our ancestors by the angels was shown to be true, and those who did not follow it or obey it received the punishment they deserved.

³How, then, shall we escape if we pay no attention to such a great salvation? The Lord himself first announced this salvation, and those who heard him proved to us that it is true.

⁴At the same time God added his witness to theirs by performing all kinds of miracles and wonders and by distributing the gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will.

The One Who Leads Us to Salvation

⁵God has not placed the angels as rulers over the new world to come—the world of which we speak.

⁶Instead, as it is said somewhere in the Scriptures: “What are human beings, O God, that you should think of them; mere human beings, that you should care for them?

⁷You made them for a little while lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor,

⁸and made them rulers over all things.” It says that God made them “rulers over all things”; this clearly includes everything. We do not, however, see human beings ruling over all things now.

⁹But we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, so that through God's grace he should die for everyone. We see him now crowned with glory and honor because of the death he suffered.

¹⁰It was only right that God, who creates and preserves all things, should make Jesus perfect through suffering, in order to bring many children to share his glory. For Jesus is the one who leads them to salvation.

¹¹He purifies people from their sins, and both he and those who are made pure all have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his family.

¹²He says to God, “I will tell my people what you have done; I will praise you in their meeting.”

¹³He also says, “I will put my trust in God.” And he also says, “Here I am with the children that God has given me.”

¹⁴Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did this so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death,

¹⁵and in this way set free those who were slaves all their lives because of their fear of death.

¹⁶For it is clear that it is not the angels that he helps. Instead, he helps the descendants of Abraham.

¹⁷This means that he had to become like his people in every way, in order to be their faithful and merciful High Priest in his service to God, so that the people's sins would be forgiven.

¹⁸And now he can help those who are tempted, because he himself was tempted and suffered.

Jesus Is Greater than Moses

¹My Christian friends, who also have been called by God! Think of Jesus, whom God sent to be the High Priest of the faith we profess.

²He was faithful to God, who chose him to do this work, just as Moses was faithful in his work in God's house.

³A man who builds a house receives more honor than the house itself. In the same way Jesus is worthy of much greater honor than Moses.

⁴Every house, of course, is built by someone—and God is the one who has built all things.

⁵Moses was faithful in God's house as a servant, and he spoke of the things that God would say in the future.

⁶But Christ is faithful as the Son in charge of God's house. We are his house if we keep up our courage and our confidence in what we hope for.

A Rest for God's People

⁷So then, as the Holy Spirit says, “If you hear God's voice today,

⁸do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were when they rebelled against God, as they were that day in the desert when they put him to the test.

⁹There they put me to the test and tried me, says God, although they had seen what I did for forty years.

¹⁰And so I was angry with those people and said, ‘They are always disloyal and refuse to obey my commands.’

¹¹I was angry and made a solemn promise: ‘They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest!’”

¹²My friends, be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God.

¹³Instead, in order that none of you be deceived by sin and become stubborn, you must help one another every day, as long as the word “Today” in the scripture applies to us.

¹⁴For we are all partners with Christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at the beginning.

¹⁵This is what the scripture says: “If you hear God's voice today, do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were when they rebelled against God.”

¹⁶Who were the people who heard God's voice and rebelled against him? All those who were led out of Egypt by Moses.

¹⁷With whom was God angry for forty years? With the people who sinned, who fell down dead in the desert.

¹⁸When God made his solemn promise, “They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest”—of whom was he speaking? Of those who rebelled.

¹⁹We see, then, that they were not able to enter the land, because they did not believe.

¹Now, God has offered us the promise that we may receive that rest he spoke about. Let us take care, then, that none of you will be found to have failed to receive that promised rest.

²For we have heard the Good News, just as they did. They heard the message, but it did them no good, because when they heard it, they did not accept it with faith.

³We who believe, then, do receive that rest which God promised. It is just as he said, “I was angry and made a solemn promise: ‘They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest!’” He said this even though his work had been finished from the time he created the world.

⁴For somewhere in the Scriptures this is said about the seventh day: “God rested on the seventh day from all his work.”

⁵This same matter is spoken of again: “They will never enter that land where I would have given them rest.”

⁶Those who first heard the Good News did not receive that rest, because they did not believe. There are, then, others who are allowed to receive it.

⁷This is shown by the fact that God sets another day, which is called “Today.” Many years later he spoke of it through David in the scripture already quoted: “If you hear God's voice today, do not be stubborn.”

⁸If Joshua had given the people the rest that God had promised, God would not have spoken later about another day.

⁹As it is, however, there still remains for God's people a rest like God's resting on the seventh day.

¹⁰For those who receive that rest which God promised will rest from their own work, just as God rested from his.

¹¹Let us, then, do our best to receive that rest, so that no one of us will fail as they did because of their lack of faith.

¹²The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together. It judges the desires and thoughts of the heart.

¹³There is nothing that can be hid from God; everything in all creation is exposed and lies open before his eyes. And it is to him that we must all give an account of ourselves.

Jesus the Great High Priest

¹⁴Let us, then, hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we have a great High Priest who has gone into the very presence of God—Jesus, the Son of God.

¹⁵Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin.

¹⁶Let us have confidence, then, and approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it.

¹⁹She spins her own thread and weaves her own cloth.

²⁰She is generous to the poor and needy.

²¹She doesn't worry when it snows, because her family has warm clothing.

²²She makes bedspreads and wears clothes of fine purple linen.