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THE Revelation of Jesus the Messiah, which God gave to him, to show to his servants the things that must shortly occur: and he signified [fn] by sending, through his angel, to his servant John; ² who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus the Messiah, as to all that he saw.

³ Blessed is he that readeth, and they who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep the things that are written in it; for the time is near.⁴ John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and quietude, from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;⁵ and from Jesus the Messiah, the Witness, the Faithful, the First-born of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth; who hath loved us, and released us from our sins by his blood;⁶ and hath made us a kingdom sacerdotal to God and his Father: to whom be glory and power, for ever and ever. Amen.⁷ Behold, he cometh with clouds; and all eyes shall see him, and also they who speared him; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn on account of him. Yes: Amen.⁸ I am Alpha, also Omega, saith the Lord God; who is, and was, and is to come, the omnipotent.

⁹ I John, your brother, and partaker with you in the affliction and suffering that are in Jesus the Messiah, was in the island called Patmos, because of the word of God, and because of the testimony of Jesus the Messiah.¹⁰ I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day; and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, which said:¹¹ That which thou seest, write in a book, and send to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.¹² And I turned myself to look at the voice that talked with me; and when I had turned, I saw seven candlesticks of gold;¹³ and, in the midst of the candlesticks, one like the Son of man, clothed to the feet, and girded about his paps with a girdle of gold.¹⁴ And his head and his hair were white, like white wool, like snow; and his eyes, like a flame of fire:¹⁵ and his feet were like fine brass, flaming in a furnace: and his voice, like the sound of many waters.¹⁶ And he had in his right hand seven stars; and from his mouth issued a sharp twoedged sword; and his visage was like the sun shining in its strength.¹⁷ And when I saw him, I fell at his feet like one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, and said, Fear not: I am the First and the Last;¹⁸ and who liveth and was dead; and behold, I am alive for ever and ever. Amen. And I have the keys of death and of the unseen world.¹⁹ Therefore, write what thou hast seen, and the things that are; and the things that are to be hereafter:²⁰ the mystery of these seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven candlesticks of gold. Those seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.