Revelation 7:9
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
Triumph of the Elect. 9 After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches[a] in their hands.
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Revelation 7:14
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
14 I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress;[a] they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.(A)
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- 7:14 Time of great distress: fierce persecution by the Romans; cf. Introduction.
Revelation 13:15-18
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
15 It was then permitted to breathe life into the beast’s image, so that the beast’s image could speak and [could] have anyone who did not worship it put to death.(A) 16 It forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to be given a stamped image on their right hands or their foreheads,(B) 17 so that no one could buy or sell except one who had the stamped image of the beast’s name or the number that stood for its name.
18 [a](C)Wisdom is needed here; one who understands can calculate the number of the beast, for it is a number that stands for a person. His number is six hundred and sixty-six.
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- 13:18 Each of the letters of the alphabet in Hebrew as well as in Greek has a numerical value. Many possible combinations of letters will add up to 666, and many candidates have been nominated for this infamous number. The most likely is the emperor Caesar Nero (see note on Rev 13:3), the Greek form of whose name in Hebrew letters gives the required sum. (The Latin form of this name equals 616, which is the reading of a few manuscripts.) Nero personifies the emperors who viciously persecuted the church. It has also been observed that “6” represents imperfection, falling short of the perfect number “7,” and is represented here in a triple or superlative form.
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