I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and told: “Get up and measure God’s temple and the altar, and count those bowing there. But leave out the courtyard outside the temple — do not measure it, because it has been given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.

And I will give my two witnesses authority, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, dressed in sackcloth.”

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand in front of the Lord of the earth. If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes out of their mouths and eats up their enemies — anyone who wants to harm them has to die that way. They have authority to shut the sky so that no rain falls during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with any plague as often as they want.

And when they have finished their testimony, the wild animal that comes up out of the bottomless place will make war on them, and defeat them, and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city — the one called, in the way these things are spoken, Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was also executed. For three and a half days, people from every people and tribe and language and nation look at their bodies and will not let them be put in a grave. And those living on the earth are delighted about them, and celebrate, and send each other presents — because these two prophets had tormented the people living on the earth.

And after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God went into them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on the people watching them. And they heard a loud voice from the sky saying, “Come up here” — and they went up into the sky in a cloud, and their enemies watched them go. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell, and seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of the sky.

The second trouble has passed. Look — the third is coming quickly.

And the seventh messenger blew, and there were loud voices in the sky saying:

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Anointed, and he will reign into the ages.”

And the twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones in front of God fell face down and bowed to God, saying:

“We thank you, Lord God, Ruler over everything — the one who is and who was — because you have taken your great power and begun to reign. The nations were angry, and your anger has come, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for giving the reward to your servants the prophets and to your people and to those who fear your name, small and great — and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

And God’s temple in the sky was opened, and the chest of his covenant could be seen inside his temple, and there was lightning and voices and thunder and an earthquake and heavy hail.