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Showing posts from August, 2021

The Most Puzzling Chapter

I was given a reed like a measuring rod   and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers.  But exclude the outer court;   do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles.   They will trample on the holy city   for 42 months.   And I will appoint my two witnesses,   and they will prophesy for 1,260 days,   clothed in sackcloth.”   They are “the two olive trees”   and the two lampstands, and “they stand before the Lord of the earth.”   If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies.   This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die.   They have power to shut up the heavens   so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying;   and they have power to turn the waters into blood   and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast   that comes up from the Abyss   will attack them   and overpower and kill them.   Th

Another Interlude

  Then I saw another mighty angel   coming down from heaven.   He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow   above his head; his face was like the sun,   and his legs were like fiery pillars.  He was holding a little scroll,   which lay open in his hand. He planted his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land,   and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion.   When he shouted, the voices of the seven thunders   spoke.   And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write;   but I heard a voice from heaven   say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.” Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land   raised his right hand to heaven.   And he swore   by him who lives for ever and ever,   who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it,   and said, “There will be no more delay!   But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet,   the mystery  

More Trumpets

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.  When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.  And out of the smoke locusts came down on the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.  They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.  They were not allowed to kill them but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes.  During those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.   The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was lik