I asked the angel that had been speaking to me, "What do these horns mean?" He answered, "They stand for the world powers that have scattered the people of Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem."

Then I asked the angel, "What do these things stand for, sir?"

Then I asked him, "What do the two olive trees on either side of the lampstand mean?

Then I asked the angel, "Sir, what do these chariots mean?"

I went up to one of those standing there and asked him to explain it all. So he told me the meaning.

I was trying to understand what the vision meant, when suddenly someone was standing in front of me.

One of the elders asked me, "Who are these people dressed in white robes, and where do they come from?"

"I don't know, sir. You do," I answered. He said to me, "These are the people who have come safely through the terrible persecution. They have washed their robes and made them white with the blood of the Lamb.

Then I saw the angel who had been speaking to me step forward, and another angel came to meet him.

"Don't you know?" he asked me. "No, I don't, sir," I replied.

The angel appeared again and said, "Look! Something else is coming!"

Then I asked the angel, "Sir, what do these chariots mean?"

He answered, "These are the four winds; they have just come from the presence of the Lord of all the earth."

The angel of God spoke to me in the dream and said, 'Jacob!' 'Yes,' I answered.

I heard a voice call out over the Ulai River, "Gabriel, explain to him the meaning of what he saw."

He explained, "Daniel, I have come here to help you understand the prophecy.

When you began to plead with God, he answered you. He loves you, and so I have come to tell you the answer. Now pay attention while I explain the vision.

The angel said to me, "Daniel, God loves you. Stand up and listen carefully to what I am going to say. I have been sent to you." When he had said this, I stood up, still trembling.

The angel prince of the kingdom of Persia opposed me for twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief angels, came to help me, because I had been left there alone in Persia.

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came to me and said, "Come, and I will show you how the famous prostitute is to be punished, that great city that is built near many rivers.

The Spirit took control of me, and the angel carried me to a desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a red beast that had names insulting to God written all over it; the beast had seven heads and ten horns.

On her forehead was written a name that has a secret meaning: "Great Babylon, the mother of all prostitutes and perverts in the world."

"Why are you amazed?" the angel asked me. "I will tell you the secret meaning of the woman and of the beast that carries her, the beast with seven heads and ten horns.

Then the angel said to me, "Write this: Happy are those who have been invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb." And the angel added, "These are the true words of God."

I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, "Don't do it! I am a servant together with you and with other believers, all those who hold to the truth that Jesus revealed. Worship God!" For the truth that Jesus revealed is what inspires the prophets.

I, John, have heard and seen all these things. And when I finished hearing and seeing them, I fell down at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things, and I was about to worship him.

And he said to me, "Do not keep the prophetic words of this book a secret, because the time is near when all this will happen.

"Listen!" says Jesus. "I am coming soon! I will bring my rewards with me, to give to each one according to what he has done.

Happy are those who wash their robes clean and so have the right to eat the fruit from the tree of life and to go through the gates into the city.

"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to announce these things to you in the churches. I am descended from the family of David; I am the bright morning star."