12
“There Appeared in the Sky a Very Important Sign”
1 Then there appeared in the sky a very important sign: A woman clothed with the sun. Under her feet was the moon, and on her head a victor’s crown of twelve stars.
2 She was pregnant and was crying out in the throes and anguish of childbirth.
3 Then another sign appeared in the sky: A large, fiery-red dragon. It had seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadem crowns.
4 With his tail he dragged hold of a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. The dragon was standing in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that, as soon as the baby was born, he could devour it.
5 The woman gave birth to a son, who is destined to “shepherd all the nations with an iron scepter.”+ The dragon was about to strike, but the child was suddenly snatched up to God and to his throne.
6 Then the woman fled into the wilderness, to a place of refuge that had been prepared for her there at God’s command, where they can provide her with food and care for 1,260 days.
7 Then war broke out in heaven, Michael and the angels under his command fighting against the dragon. The dragon fought back, along with the angels under him,
8 but he was overpowered, and he and his angels were no longer permitted any place in heaven.
9 And so the large dragon, the ancient serpent, was thrown down—the one who is also called “the devil” and “Satan,” who deceives all mankind. He was thrown down to the earth, and the angels under his command, too, were themselves thrown down with him.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say,
“The time has come at last for God to bring deliverance and display his power and set up his Kingdom,
and for his Messiah to assert his authority!
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down,
the one who accuses them in the presence of our God day and night.
11 They prevailed victorious over him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the message,
the testimony to which they held fast,
and did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
12 For this reason celebrate, you heavens, and all you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea!
For the devil has come down to you full of rage, knowing that he has only a short time.”
13 When the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the boy.
14 But the woman was given the two wings of a powerful eagle, so that she could fly into the wilderness to the place of refuge prepared for her, where she would receive food and care for “a time, times, and half a time,”+ that is, for three and a half years, out of the serpent’s reach.
15 The serpent spewed from his mouth toward the woman a flood of water, hoping to sweep her away in the torrent,
16 but the ground came to her rescue by opening its mouth and swallowing up the flood that the dragon had spewed from his mouth.
17 The dragon was enraged because of the woman’s escape and went off to wage war against the gleanings of her seed, that is, those who obey God’s commandments and hold fast to the testimony about Jesus.