The Woman, the Child, and the Dragon
1Then a great sign appeared in heaven: 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 cried out in labor, in the agony of giving birth. 3Then another sign appeared in heaven: a great fiery red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads. 4His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and hurled them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. 5She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with an iron scepter, and her child was snatched up 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 fed for one thousand two hundred sixty days. 7Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back, 8but he was not strong enough, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9The great dragon was thrown down — that ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God have come, and the authority of his Christ, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, who accused them before our God day and night. 11They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. 12Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you in great fury, knowing that his time is short.”
The Dragon Pursues the Woman
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 woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly to her place in the wilderness, where she is fed for a time, times, and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 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 help; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had spewed from his mouth. 17Then the dragon was enraged at the woman, and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring — those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
