It forces everyone—the small and great, the rich and poor, the free and slaves—to have a mark put on their right hand or on their forehead.

It will not allow anyone to make a purchase or sell anything unless the person has the mark with the beast’s name or the number of its name.

Then another angel, a third one, followed them and said in a loud voice, “If any worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or their hands,

The smoke of their painful suffering goes up forever and always. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, and those who receive the mark of its name.”

So the first angel poured his bowl on the earth, and a nasty and terrible sore appeared on the people who had the beast’s mark and worshipped its image.

But the beast was seized, along with the false prophet who had done signs in the beast’s presence. (He had used the signs to deceive people into receiving the beast’s mark and into worshipping the beast’s image.) The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake that burns with sulfur.

The saints rule with Christ

Then I saw thrones, and people took their seats on them, and judgment was given in their favor. They were the ones who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and God’s word, and those who hadn’t worshipped the beast or its image, who hadn’t received the mark on their forehead or hand. They came to life and ruled with Christ for one thousand years.