Revelation 17:1-8

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Great Whore and the Beast

17 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great whore^[a] who is seated on many waters,^{(A) 2} with whom the kings of the earth have engaged in sexual immorality^[b] and with the wine of whose prostitution the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.”^{(B) 3} So he carried me away in the spirit^[c] into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.^{(C) 4} The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her prostitution,^{(D) 5} and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother^[d] of whores^[e] and of earth’s abominations.”^{(E) 6} And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.

When I saw her, I was greatly amazed.^{(F) 7} But the angel said to me, “Why are you so amazed? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. ⁸ The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.^(G)