The angel said, "Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees, until we mark the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads."

Their prejudices will be held against them. They sin as openly as the people of Sodom did. They are doomed, and they have brought it on themselves.

They are going to end up in hell, because their god is their bodily desires. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of, and they think only of things that belong to this world.

The Mysterious Wickedness is already at work, but what is going to happen will not happen until the one who holds it back is taken out of the way.

Remember that there will be difficult times in the last days.

they will be unkind, merciless, slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good;

they will hold to the outward form of our religion, but reject its real power. Keep away from such people.

and their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, where their Lord was crucified. The symbolic name of that city is Sodom, or Egypt.

A second angel followed the first one, saying, "She has fallen! Great Babylon has fallen! She made all peoples drink her wine---the strong wine of her immoral lust!"

The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of all countries were destroyed. God remembered great Babylon and made her drink the wine from his cup---the wine of his furious anger.

He cried out in a loud voice: "She has fallen! Great Babylon has fallen! She is now haunted by demons and unclean spirits; all kinds of filthy and hateful birds live in her.

They stand a long way off, because they are afraid of sharing in her suffering. They say, "How terrible! How awful! This great and mighty city Babylon! In just one hour you have been punished!"

Then a mighty angel picked up a stone the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, "This is how the great city Babylon will be violently thrown down and will never be seen again.

And so the time is coming when I will deal with Babylonia's idols. The whole country will be put to shame, and all its people will be killed.

Everything on earth and in the sky will shout for joy when Babylonia falls to the people who come from the north to destroy it.

The kings of the earth who took part in her immorality and lust will cry and weep over the city when they see the smoke from the flames that consume her.

True and just are his judgments! He has condemned the prostitute who was corrupting the earth with her immorality. God has punished her because she killed his servants."