America goes over the precipice of destruction

I have learned not to worry or to be overly concerned about national and political conditions, or of the encroachment of religious error, or of worldly lusts that threaten to engulf the society of today. The message of Revelation has taught me the lesson of faith in God and dependence upon the Christ, the King and Judge, to handle the situation. Our part is to pray, trust, and do the very best we can to remedy the situation; beyond that all is in His hand… I have learned that Revelation echoes and emphasizes the message of the prophets—the nation that leaves God out of its thinking, rejects Him, or fights against Him, is doomed to destruction by the judgement of Christ… This nation [America] faces a choice: [1] repent of its ungodly wickedness and recognize that God is on the throne in the person of His Son, acknowledge Him as God and Creator... that He rules in national affairs, and continue to exist as a nation; or [2] continue on the road it is traveling and go over the precipice of destruction by a judgement from heaven. In this view, I pray for a change of our national heart; but if there is no change, I pray that the faith of our brethren will sustain them in the inevitable judgement that lies ahead.

Homer Hailey, The Book of Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary (p. 437)

Satan’s final furious effort to destroy the church

“And when the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up over the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Revelation 20:7-10).

Many questionable theories have been built upon the Gog and Magog of John’s vision. Some say the scene points to a great physical battle to be fought in Palestine at some future date with Russia, the United States, and other nations participating. Unfortunately for the theory, God through Ezekiel explains who the Gog and Magog are. “Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Art thou he of whom I spake in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, that prophesied in those days for many years that I would bring thee against them?” (38:17). God said that He had spoken of Gog’s coming, but no prophet ever named Gog or Magog. Yet the prophets foretold over and over of the heathen enemies who would come against Israel and who would be defeated and destroyed by His hand. Therefore we conclude that Gog of the land of Magog symbolized all the heathen enemies of God’s people from the time of the prophets to the Roman Empire, all of who sought to thwart His purpose and to destroy His king. The seer now prophesies that toward the end of time there would be a horde gathered and led by Satan in a final furious effort to destroy the church.

Far from a physical conflict, this battle will be a moral and spiritual one. Satan’s Gog and Magog symbolize such forces and agencies as atheism, humanism, communism, materialism, astrology, and all manner of false and perverted religions. Gog and Magog also represent such forces as anarchy (rebellion against all principles and standards of truth); corruption in government and business; immorality with its decay of home, lack of natural affection and devotion to children; sodomy; alcoholism; and total abandonment to a base and sordid life of the flesh. Satan will use the anti-God, immoral standards and practices that he is using today, but probably to a more intense and flagrant degree. Gog and Magog do not gather around a conference table and offer themselves to the devil in a nefarious pact; but being deceived, they are drawn to him as were the kings of old.

Homer Hailey, The Book of Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary (pp. 396-7)

God pours out the bowls of wrath upon America

“And the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea; and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living soul died, even the things that were in the sea” (Revelation 16:3).

Moses wrote that “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11). Consequently, when the life is gone, decay and rottenness set in until one returns to the dust from whence he came. This is the irrevocable judgement of God from the very beginning (Gen. 3:19). Likewise, when the spiritual quality of a society decays, like a sea of coagulated blood from dead men, it putrefies and rots, issuing a foul and obnoxious odor. Eventually it returns to the unseen (Sheol, Ps. 9:17); this, too, is by the judgement of God. Consider Sodom, the Canaanites, Israel, Judah, and all the rest of ancient nations; when, due to spiritual decay, they were no longer fit to continue, God removed them. A society abandoned to idolatry and its consequent morals, as was the Roman Empire of John’s day, is spiritually dead. In such a society, morals decline to the lowest level; the family collapses, schools breed anarchy and rebellion, business ethics are forgotten, entertainment becomes base and sordid, and printing presses exude smut and filth, until the whole is strangled in its own death blood and suffocated by its own stench. Our society too must listen to the trumpet warnings before God pours out the bowls of wrath.

Homer Hailey, The Book of Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary (p. 328)  

The Last Judgement

Image: The Last Judgement (Detail) Hieronymus Bosch (1482)

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11-15)

Et vidi thronum magnum candidum, et sedentem super eum, a cujus conspectu fugit terra, et caelum, et locus non est inventus eis. Et vidi mortuos, magnos et pusillos, stantes in conspectu throni, et libri aperti sunt: et alius liber apertus est, qui est vitae: et judicati sunt mortui ex his, quae scripta erant in libris, secundum opera ipsorum: et dedit mare mortuos, qui in eo erant: et mors et infernus dederunt mortuos suos, qui in ipsis erant: et judicatum est de singulis secundum opera ipsorum. Et infernus et mors missi sunt in stagnum ignis. Haec est mors secunda. Et qui non inventus est in libro vitae scriptus, missus est in stagnum ignis. (Apocolypse 20:11-15)

Καὶ εἶδον θρόνον λευκὸν μέγαν καὶ τὸν καθήμενον ἐπ' αὐτοῦ, οὗ ἀπὸ προσώπου ἔφυγεν ἡ γῆ καὶ ὁ οὐρανός καὶ τόπος οὐχ εὑρέθη αὐτοῖς. καὶ εἶδον τοὺς νεκρούς μικρούς καὶ μεγάλους ἑστῶτας ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ βιβλία ἠνεῳχθησαν· καὶ βιβλίον ἄλλο ἠνεῳχθη, ὅ ἐστιν τῆς ζωῆς. καὶ ἐκρίθησαν οἱ νεκροὶ ἐκ τῶν γεγραμμένων ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν καὶ ἔδωκεν ἡ θάλασσα τοὺς ἐν αὐτῇ νεκροὺς, καὶ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ὁ ᾅδης ἔδωκαν τοὺς ἐν αὐτοῖς νεκροὺς καὶ ἐκρίθησαν ἕκαστος κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν. καὶ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ὁ ᾅδης ἐβλήθησαν εἰς τὴν λίμνην τοῦ πυρός οὗτος ἐστιν ὁ δεύτερός θάνατος. καὶ εἴ τις οὐχ εὑρέθη ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ τῆς ζωῆς γεγραμμένος ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν λίμνην τοῦ πυρός. (ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ 20:11-15)

The beast from the earth

Image: The Apotheosis of Washington (by Constantino Brumidi, 1865)

The beast from the earth is the sea beast’s religiously oriented accomplice. This false prophet’s lying wonders support the sea beast’s arrogant boasts and slanders against God, luring those who dwell on the earth into worshipping the beast. What does this earth beast/false prophet symbolize? Just as the beast from the sea is Rome and yet is much bigger than Rome, so the beast from the earth is the imperial cult indigenous to Asia Minor but also a larger phenomenon that continues in our day. As we saw in the background of the letters to the seven churches, several of those ancient Christian congregations found themselves in cities that competed vigorously for the honor of building a temple or shrine to the ruling Roman emperor and/or to the empire’s patron goddess, Roma. A city that bore the honored designation “temple warden” (neocoros) had enhanced its social prestige and its political and economic status. In the decades following John’s reception of the Apocalypse, religious devotion in the form of burning incense to the emperor would be made the test of political loyalty to Rome and its ruler. The worship of rulers as gods, descendants of the gods, or gods in the making (after death—apotheosis) is less overt in Western culture today than it was in the ancient world. Even in so-called secular states, however, governments can arrogate to themselves quasi-divine powers and issue quasi-divine promises of salvation to their loyal and believing subjects. Such states have no qualms about exploiting religious establishments in the interests of civic loyalty and cultural conformity. But people who, in allegiance to “another king, Jesus,” resist the state’s claim to ownership over forehead and hand, mind and deed, are seen as threats to good order and the common weal—and must be eliminated.

Dennis E. Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation (pp. 196-197)  

The Temple Measured: The Church Safe While Suffering (Revelation 11:1-2)

Image: The Spoils of Jerusalem, Arch of Titus 

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. 2But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months. (Revelation 11:1-2)

[T]he unmeasured outer court and the “holy city” that it represents, trampled under Gentile feet for forty-two months, provide a contrasting perspective on the same true church that is pictured in the measured sanctuary. In the paradoxical way in which Revelation’s visions so often describe the church, Christ’s holy temple-city is secure and vulnerable: secured from apostasy and divine wrath by the power and grace of the Lamb but vulnerable to attack through persecution by the world’s noncovenant peoples.  Although elsewhere in the Bible the title “the holy city” refers to the physical metropolis that was the capital of Israel and center of Jewish worship, in the book of Revelation “the holy city” is the new Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb (Rev. 21:2; 22:19). Earthly Jerusalem, symbolizing anti-Jesus Judaism, as the site of the Lord’s crucifixion, has become identified with “the great city” (11:8), symbolic of human community that stands in the defiant tradition of Sodom, Egypt, and preeminently Babylon (14:8: 16:9; 17:18). Because a Christ-centered redefinition of the people of God has occurred, the name Jew no longer belongs to anti-Jesus Jews (2:9; 3:9), and pro-Jesus Gentiles have been redeemed and consecrated as God’s kingdom of priests (5:9-10). So also the “holy city” no longer belongs to earthly Jerusalem, which has become just one more expression of the “great city” that slays the saints (11:7-8; 17:6). The holy city is the bride of the Lamb, who will be revealed in beauty, ready for her wedding, at the end of history.

In the interim, however, the holy city will be trampled by the Gentiles, just as the earthly Jerusalem and its temple had been razed and trampled by Roman troops under Titus. The interim here is symbolized as forty-two months, which will be shown in Revelation 12-13 to symbolize the period of the dragon’s virulent but frustrated attempts to destroy the church through deception and violent aggression.

Thus the unmeasured courtyard, given to the Gentiles, and the holy city, trampled by the Gentiles, balance the portrait of the church as the measured sanctuary: though protected from apostasy and God’s wrath, the church is exposed to physical coercion, social contempt, and violence.

Dennis E. Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation (pp. 168-169)

The Function of Propaganda

Image: U.S. Government World War II propaganda poster urging civilians to participate in the war effort. Source: University of North Texas Digital Library

The function of propaganda is to make evil look good, the demonic divine, violence like peacemaking, tyranny and oppression like liberation. It makes blind, unquestioning allegiance appear to be freely chosen, religiously appropriate devotion. The grand lie does not appear to start as deception, but only as rhetorical exaggeration. The exaggeration deepens, lengthens, and broadens in an almost organic act of self-distortion. Eventually the rhetoric becomes blatant falsehood, but now people have not only come to believe the lie, they also live the lie; over time they have been narrated into it. At that point, the exaggeration-turned-falsehood becomes uncontested and uncontestable truth, and its effects highly dangerous. Evil in the name of good and of God is now nearly inevitable, as the lie functions as an apocalypse, a religious revelation that only a true Apocalypse can unveil.

Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly (pp. 125-126)

The true Jews believe in Jesus

Ruins of ancient Smyrna 

The Smyrnan church’s tribulation and poverty resulted from physical and economic assaults, which will be symbolized in the beast that attacks the saints and makes submission to his “mark” the condition for enjoying the prosperity of his evil empire (Rev. 13:7, 16-17). This church’s affliction was instigated by slanderous accusations brought by “those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” (2:9; 3:9). Though ethnically descended from Israel’s patriarchs, the opponents actions show that they are not God’s people but Satan’s synagogue. God shows covenant faithfulness to families through the generations, but in the last analysis the people of God are defined Christocentrically, not genealogically. The issue is not birth from the flesh but birth from the Spirit (John 3:6), just as the circumcision that marks God’s people is not a fleshly surgery but a cleansing of the heart by the Spirit (Rom. 2:28-29; cf. Phil. 3:2-3). Gentiles, once not a people, have been called to become “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9-10; 1:18). Titles that once set Israel apart (Exod. 19:5-6) now belong to all who belong to Jesus, who abide in him as branches in the true vine, bearing fruit pleasing to the Father (John 15:1-8; Isa. 5:1-7). 

Dennis E. Johnson, Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation (p. 74) 

"For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." ~ Saint Paul (Romans 2:28-29) 

Discerning the purpose of the book of Revelation

As we have already noted, most people interpret the book of Revelation as a kind of advance DVD of the end of the world. The focus of the book, they think, is eschatology, the last things. In a sense, of course, eschatology is indeed a focus of the last book of the Bible, but in a profound sense eschatology is not the ultimate focus of Revelation. Rather, as in the rest of Scripture, the eschatology we find in Revelation is a means to an end. Its intention is to give hope to people in trying and/or tempting times so that they will remain faithful to their covenantal commitment to God.

In other words, the purpose of the book of Revelation is to persuade its hearers and readers, both ancient and contemporary, to remain faithful to God in spite of past, present, or possible future suffering—whatever form that suffering might take, and whatever source it may have—simply for being faithful. In spite of memory, experience, or fear, Revelation tells us, covenant faithfulness is possible because of Jesus and worthwhile because of the glorious future God has in store for us and for the entire created order. 

Revelation, we might say, provides us with a vivid, imaginative, and prophetic call to an “anti-assimilationist” and life-giving Christian witness to, against, and within an immoral and idolatrous imperial culture of death. It does so not only by offering the hope of God’s future salvation, but also by showing us that God is sovereign even now. The combination of that future assurance and the present reality of God’s sovereignty means that life now should and can be lived as a life of worship and faithfulness to God and the Lamb. 

Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly (pp. 74-75)      

America’s civil religion is pagan, seductive, and dangerous.

It has often been said that the most common idols in the West are Power, Sex, and Money; with this I am not in any profound disagreement. However, inasmuch as these idols are connected to a larger vision of life, such as the American dream, or the inalienable rights of free people, they become part of a nation’s civil religion. I would contend, in fact, that the most alluring and dangerous deity in the United States is the omnipresent, syncretistic god of nationalism mixed with Christianity lite: religious beliefs, language, and practices that are superficially Christian but infused with national myths and habits. Sadly, most of this civil religion’s practitioners belong to Christian churches, which is precisely why Revelation is addressed to the seven churches (not to Babylon), to all Christians tempted by the civil cult...

The sacred myths of civil religion are expressed, reinforced, honored, and propagated in sacred symbols, spaces, rituals, and holy-days. These occasions use sacred language, music, texts, and stories. Space does not permit a full discussion, but some of these American symbols and practices—often with close parallels elsewhere—are listed here.

Some Symbols and Practices of American Civil Religion

Sacred Symbols and Spaces:

• National flags as sacred objects
• Nationals flags (sometimes juxtaposed with “Christian flags”) in churches
• Crosses in military of other non-church contexts (e.g., military medals in the form of a cross)
• Blending of Christian and national images (e.g., cross and flag, Jesus and flag)

Sacred Rituals and holy-days

• Civil rituals made religious
• Official days of prayer
• National feast/holy days (e.g., Memorial Day, Independence Day, Veterans’ Day)
• State funerals
• Moments of silence
• Congressional chaplain
• Prayer at political and civic events
• Prayer around the flag pole
• National days of prayer, prayer breakfasts
• The pledge of allegiance, at school or other civic gatherings, to the flag as icon of the nation “under God”
• The national anthem at sporting events
• Swearing on the Bible
• Chaplain’s prayers before military combat missions

Religious rituals made civil 

• Pledge of allegiance in church
• Recognition of military or veterans in church at national holidays
• Prayers for those “serving our country” or “the/our troops” in church
• Sermons and children’s sermons on patriotic themes
• Use of patriotic music in worship
• Religious events on national holidays
• Religious gatherings in times of national crisis

Sacred language

• War as “mission”
• “Sacred” duty/honor
• Divine passive voice: “we are called” (e.g., at a certain moment in history, usually before a war)
• “God bless America”/“God bless our troops”
• Echoes of/allusions to the Bible in civic and political discourse
• Attribution of biblical language for God or God’s people to the U.S. (e.g., “the light of the world”; “city on a hill”)
• Lack of theological specificity (e.g., the omission of Jesus’ name from public prayer and Scripture reading)

Sacred music/national hymns

• Patriotic songs or sacred devotion with much (“God Bless America”), some (“America/My Country Tis of Thee”), or even no explicit religious language (the national anthem)
• Hymns with explicitly nationalistic and militaristic language (e.g., “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “Navy Hymn)
• Hymns with allegorical militaristic language interpreted literally and nationalistically (e.g., “Onward Christian Soldiers”)

Sacred Texts

• The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
• Famous speeches by sacred leader and heroes (e.g., Patrick Henry, Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King)
• Biblical texts that seem to underwrite national values such as freedom and redemptive violence

Sacred stories of sacred leaders and heroes (“saints”/“martyrs”/“prophets”)

• Founding Fathers
• Leaders in crisis (e.g., Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage)
• Great warriors (e.g., Patton)
• Veterans in general

These various aspects of American civil religion come to expression in two kinds of venues: the civil and political (speeches, parades, school events, sporting events, military ceremonies, etc.), on the one hand, and the religious (church worship services), on the other.

From this listing we can recognize another aspect of the similarity between Roman and contemporary American civil religion. The former involved the politicization (specifically, the imperialization) of the sacred, and the sacralization of the political (specifically, the imperial). This is parallel to what happened in the U.S.: many civic and political events have a religious dimension, and religious events sometimes take on a civic and political—specifically nationalistic, and even militaristic—dimension. This process continues to this day, despite the formal constraints of law and consequent changes in practice (such as the abolition of school prayer).

One major difference, however, is extremely important to recognize: the syncretism of Rome’s civil religion involved the blending of Roman ideology and pagan religiosity, but the syncretism of American civil religion involves the blending of American ideology and Christian, or at least theistic and quasi-Christian, religiosity. The early church had a natural suspicion of Roman civil religion because it was so blatantly pagan and idolatrous—though even it could be appealing. Contemporary Christians can much more easily assume that Christian, or quasi-Christian, ideas, language, and practices are benign and even divinely sanctioned. This makes American civil religion all the more attractive—that is, all the more seductive and dangerous. Its fundamentally pagan character is masked by its Christian veneer.

Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly (pp. 56; 50-54)

The Theology/Ideology of American Civil Religion in the Beginning of the 21st Century

The film, Pershing's Crusaders, was released in 1918

There are several interconnected myths or theological themes that permeate American civil religion. Most if not all of these themes have been present for many years (even dating back to before the nation’s founding), but of course they have evolved with the nation.

One foundational theopolitical conviction or sacred myth is exceptionalism, the idea that the United States has a unique place in God’s plan, that it is in some sense chosen. In American history this exceptionalism has manifested itself in such beliefs as the Puritan “city on a hill” (Matt. 5:14), Manifest Destiny, and the identification of the U.S. as “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14; John 8:12; 9:5). Similar to and sometimes growing out of exceptionalism is American messianism, the notion that the U.S. has a special, central vocation in the salvation of the world, particularly through the spread of American practices of freedom and American-style democracy. This belief in an exceptional role and messianic destiny to spread freedom is the backbone of America’s national religion. Arising from it is a myth of innocence, of possessing “an element of messianic inerrancy.” This third myth holds that America always operates in the world according to the highest principles of ethics and justice, and that when criticized or attacked, America is the innocent, righteous victim.

Belief in an exceptional, messianic role naturally generates another sacred conviction (and associated practices), that of extreme patriotism, extreme love of country, and even nationalism, the belief that one’s nation state, in this case the U.S., is superior to all other nation states. “Nationalism” (as I am using it here) is extreme devotion to one’s country as “the greatest nation of earth” and therefore worthy of nearly unqualified—and sometimes thoroughly unqualified—allegiance. This devotion is often based on the conviction that the nation is chosen, blessed, and commissioned by God, its power and wealth being signs of God’s approval. The U.S. is “one nation under God.” Thus devotion to one’s country and its mission in the world is ultimately a religious devotion. Greatness is defined especially as financial, political, and/or military strength, and this definition carries with it the conviction that both America and Americans should always enjoy and operate from a position of strength and security. Weakness is un-American; Americans want to be number one. For many, these kinds of secular strengths are seen as manifestations of power from God.

American civil religion values human liberty and rights as a divine gift and considers it, perhaps on par with strength, as one of the highest national values. The protection and furtherance of freedom is therefore a divine mandate and mission. The operative notion of both political (corporate) and personal (individual) freedom is that of God-given (inalienable) rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, an idea derived from both the Enlightenment and from one of the most important sacred texts of this civil religion, the Declaration of Independence. A corollary myth is a form of secularized Calvinism, the notion that hard work mixed with a degree of generosity toward others will inevitably result in greater and greater freedom and prosperity, often understood as a sign of God’s blessing. (The so-called “prosperity gospel” is an offshoot of this myth.)

Yet another sacred myth in American civil religion is that of militarism and sacred violence. This is the conviction that part of America’s exceptionalism and messianic place in history is its divinely granted permission, indeed its divine mandate, to use violence (killing of native peoples, invasions, wars, etc.) when peaceful means are undesirable or unsuccessful. Such allegedly sacred violence has justified various forms of expansion and, more recently, of the messianic mission or protecting and promoting freedom and justice. This myth can foster a crusade mentality (“ridding the world of evil”) rooted in an apocalyptic dualism, but without the corollary commitment to nonviolence we will find in Revelation.

The “myth of redemptive violence undergirds American popular culture, civil religion, nationalism, and foreign policy,” argues Walter Wink [Engaging the Powers, 13]. It underwrites the belief that killing and/or dying for the nation—especially in military service, and particularly dying for one’s country—is the highest form of both civic and religious devotion. After all, the civil religion argument goes, quoting but misinterpreting Jesus, “greater love has no man that this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13; RSV).

These are some of the basic sacred myths and convictions of American civil religion. This ideology, or theology, has remarkable parallels with the Roman imperial theology discussed above.

Michael J. Gorman, Reading Revelation Responsibly (pp. 48-50) 

These are they which came out of great tribulation

These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

Estos son los que han venido de grande tribulación, y han lavado sus ropas, y las han blanqueado en la sangre del Cordero. Por esto están delante del trono de Dios, y le sirven día y noche en su templo: y el que está sentado en el trono tenderá su pabellón sobre ellos. No tendrán más hambre, ni sed, y el sol no caerá más sobre ellos, ni otro ningún calor. Porque el Cordero que está en medio del trono los pastoreará, y los guiará á fuentes vivas de aguas: y Dios limpiará toda lágrima de los ojos de ellos.

Οὗτοί εἰσιν οἱ ἐρχόμενοι ἐκ τῆς θλίψεως τῆς μεγάλης, καὶ ἔπλυναν τὰς στολὰς αὐτῶν καὶ ἐλεύκαναν αὐτὰς ἐν τῷ αἵματι τοῦ ἀρνίου. διὰ τοῦτό εἰσιν ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ λατρεύουσιν αὐτῷ ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς ἐν τῷ ναῷ αὐτοῦ· καὶ ὁ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου σκηνώσει ἐπ’ αὐτούς. οὐ πεινάσουσιν ἔτι, οὐδὲ διψήσουσιν ἔτι, οὐδὲ μὴ πέσῃ ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς ὁ ἥλιος, οὐδὲ πᾶν καῦμα· ὅτι τὸ ἀρνίον τὸ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ θρόνου ποιμανεῖ αὐτούς, καὶ ὁδηγήσει αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ ζώσας πηγὰς ὑδάτων, καὶ ἐξαλείψει ὁ Θεὸς πᾶν δάκρυον ἀπὸ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν.

(Revelation 7:14b-17)