The Woman and the Dragon

12 A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. ² She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth.^{(A) 3} Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads.^{(B) 4} His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to deliver a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.^{(C) 5} And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule^[a] all the nations with a scepter of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne,^{(D) 6} and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.^(E)

¹⁴ But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.^{(A) 15} Then from his mouth the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood.^{(B) 16} But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. ¹⁷ Then the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to wage war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.^(C)