Revelation 1

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show to his servants the things that must shortly come to pass. And he sent and clearly indicated it by his angel to his servant John,

who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is the one who reads the words of the prophecy aloud, and those who hear and keep the things that are written in it, for the time is near.

John, to the seven congregations that are in the province of Asia: Grace to you and peace, from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne,

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us, and freed us from our sins by his blood

and has made us to be a kingdom, as priests to his God and Father; to him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him. So will it be. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

I, John, your brother and partaker with you in the affliction and the kingdom and endurance in connection with Jesus, was on the island that is called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus.

I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven congregations: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands,

and in the midst of the lampstands was one like a Son of Man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash wrapped around his chest.

And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire,

and his feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters.

And he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged broadsword, and his face was like the sun shining in its full strength.

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid! I am the first and the last,

and the Living One, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of the grave.

Therefore, write the things that you saw and what they signify, even what is about to come to pass after this.

The sacred secret of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, is this: the seven stars are the messengers of the seven congregations, and the seven lampstands are seven congregations.