Book of Common Prayer

The woman and the dragon

12 Then a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ² She was expecting a child, and she cried out in pain, in the agony of giving birth. ³ Then another sign appeared in heaven: a great fiery-red dragon with seven heads and ten horns. On its heads were seven coronets, ⁴ and its tail swept a third of the stars out of heaven and threw them down to the earth. The dragon stood opposite the woman who was about to give birth, so that he could devour her child when it was born. ⁵ She gave birth to a male child, who is going to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. The child was snatched away to God and to his throne; ⁶ the woman, meanwhile, fled into the desert, where a place has been prepared for her by God, so that she could be looked after there for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

The dragon is angry

⁷ Then war broke out in heaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fighting back. ⁸ But they could not win, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. ⁹ So the great dragon was thrown down to the earth—the ancient serpent who is called the devil and the satan, who deceives the whole world. His angels were thrown down with him. ¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now at last has come salvation and power: the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah! The accuser of our family has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before God day and night.

¹⁶ This, you see, is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God’s new age. ¹⁷ After all, God didn’t send the son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved by him.

¹⁸ “Anyone who believes in him is not condemned. But anyone who doesn’t believe is condemned already, because they didn’t believe in the name of God’s only, special son. ¹⁹ And this is the condemnation: that light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because what they were doing was evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does evil hates the light; people like that don’t come to the light, in case their deeds get shown up and reproved. ²¹ But people who do the truth come to the light, so that it can become clear that what they have done has been done in God.”