Revelation 10
About RevelationWritten by AI
Revelation is the Bible's last book and its most vivid. It is a prophecy, a letter to seven churches, and an apocalypse, a word meaning unveiling: a kind of writing full of symbols, numbers, beasts, and heavenly scenes. The author is John, exiled on the island of Patmos. Tradition identifies him as the apostle John, though some think he was another early leader with that name. Most date it around AD 95, under the emperor Domitian, while some place it earlier, in the 60s.
The churches of Asia faced pressure to compromise with Rome's power, trade, and worship. Revelation pulls back the curtain to show who truly rules: God on the throne, and the Lamb who was slain and is alive.
Christians read its visions in several ways: as mainly about John's own time, as a picture of the whole church age, as chiefly about events still to come, or as a symbolic portrait of the spiritual battle in every age. Many combine these. Whatever the view, the ending is the same hope: “Behold, I make all things new.”
Before you read Revelation 10Written by AI
Another pause. A mighty angel stands with one foot on the sea and one on the land, holding a small open scroll, and declares there will be no more delay. John is told to eat the scroll. It is sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach, and he is told he must prophesy again about many peoples and nations.
The Angel and the Small Scroll
Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head. His face was like the sun, and his legs were like pillars of fire. He held in his hand a small scroll, which lay open. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land. Then he cried out in a loud voice like the roar of a lion. And when he cried out, the seven thunders sounded their voices.
When the seven thunders had spoken, I was about to put it in writing. But I heard a voice from heaven saying, “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 lifted up his right hand to heaven. And he swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and everything in it, the earth and everything in it, and the sea and everything in it: “There will be no more delay! But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he begins to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, just as He proclaimed to His servants the prophets.”
Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the small scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel standing on the sea and on the land.”
And I went to the angel and said, “Give me the small scroll.”
“Take it and eat it,” he said. “It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”
So I took the small scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach turned bitter.
And they told me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.”