⁴⁸ But if that wicked servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delayed,’ ⁴⁹ and starts to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks with drunkards,^{(A) 50} that servant’s master will come on a day he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know. ⁵¹ He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

¹⁷ so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark: the beast’s name or the number of its name.

The Woman and the Scarlet Beast

17 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls^(A) came and spoke with me: “Come, I will show you the judgment of the notorious prostitute^[a](B) who is seated on many^[b] waters.^{(C) 2} The kings of the earth^(D) committed sexual immorality with her, and those who live on the earth became drunk on the wine of her sexual immorality.”^{(E) 3} Then he carried me away in the Spirit^[c](F) to a wilderness.

I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered^[d] with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.^{(G) 4} The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, jewels, and pearls.^(H) She had a golden cup in her hand filled with everything detestable^(I) and with the impurities of her^[e] prostitution. ⁵ On her forehead was written a name, a mystery:^(J) Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Detestable Things of the Earth. ⁶ Then I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.^(K) When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.