Revelation 11

¹Then I was given a measuring reed like a staff, and someone said, “Get up and measure the sanctuary of God and the altar and those who worship in it. ²But exclude the courtyard outside the sanctuary; do not measure it, because it has been given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. ³And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.”

⁴These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. ⁵And if anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouth and consumes their enemies; if anyone should want to harm them, this is how they must be killed. ⁶These have the authority to shut the sky so that no rain falls during the days of their prophecy, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they desire.

⁷When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war against them and will conquer them and kill them. ⁸Their corpses will lie on the main street of the great city, which is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. ⁹For three and a half days, people from every people, tribe, tongue, and nation look at their corpses, and they do not allow their corpses to be placed in a tomb. ¹⁰And those who dwell on the earth rejoice over them and celebrate, and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.

¹¹But after the three and a half days, a breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet, and a great fear fell upon those who watched them. ¹²Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up into heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. ¹³In that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell, and seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake; the rest became terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

¹⁴The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is coming quickly.

¹⁵Then the seventh angel sounded his trumpet; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The sovereignty of the world has become the sovereignty of our Lord and of his Anointed, and he will reign forever and ever.”

¹⁶And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, ¹⁷saying, “We give thanks to you, Lord God, the Ruler of All, the one who is and who was, because you have taken up your great power and have begun your reign. ¹⁸The nations were enraged, but your wrath has come, and the time for the dead to be judged, and the time to give the wages to your servants the prophets and to the holy ones and to those who fear your name—the small and the great—and to ruin those who ruin the earth.”

¹⁹Then the sanctuary of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his sanctuary; and there were flashes of lightning, and rumblings, and peals of thunder, and an earthquake, and heavy hail.