Revelation 12

¹A great sign appeared in the heavens: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. ²She was pregnant and was screaming in the agony of labor, tormented by the strain of giving birth. ³Then another sign appeared in the heavens: Look! A great, fiery-red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven royal diadems. ⁴His tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and hurled them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that whenever she bore her child, he might devour it.

⁵She gave birth to a son, a male, who is destined to shepherd all the nations with an iron scepter; and her child was snatched away to God and to his throne. ⁶The woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she might be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

⁷Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his messengers had to wage war with the dragon. The dragon and his messengers fought back, ⁸but he was not strong enough, and no place was found for them in heaven any longer. ⁹The great dragon was thrown down—that ancient serpent, the one called the Slanderer and the Satan, the one who misleads the whole inhabited world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his messengers were thrown down with him. ¹⁰Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying: “Now have come the salvation, the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ! For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, the one who accuses them before our God day and night. ¹¹And they conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their witness, for they did not cling to their lives even when faced with death. ¹²Because of this, be glad, you heavens and you who tabernacle within them! Woe to the earth and the sea, because the Slanderer has come down to you with great fury, knowing that he has only a short time.”

¹³When the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. ¹⁴But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, away from the presence of the serpent. ¹⁵Then the serpent spewed water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away in the flood. ¹⁶But the earth came to the woman’s aid; the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon spewed from his mouth. ¹⁷The dragon was infuriated with the woman and went off to wage war with the rest of her offspring—those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the witness of Jesus. ¹⁸And he stood upon the sand of the sea.