8. A second angel followed and said, “The great city of Babylon has fallen! This is the city that made all nations drunk and immoral. Now God is angry, and Babylon has fallen.”
9. Finally, a third angel came and shouted:Here is what will happen if you worship the beast and the idol and have the mark of the beast on your hand or forehead.
10. You will have to drink the wine that God gives to everyone who makes him angry. You will feel his mighty anger, and you will be tortured with fire and burning sulphur, while the holy angels and the Lamb look on.
11. If you worship the beast and the idol and accept the mark of its name, you will be tortured day and night. The smoke from your torture will go up for ever and ever, and you will never be able to rest.
12. God's people must learn to endure. They must also obey his commands and have faith in Jesus.
13. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Put this in writing. From now on, the Lord will bless everyone who has faith in him when they die.”The Spirit answered, “Yes, they will rest from their hard work, and they will be rewarded for what they have done.”
14. I looked and saw a bright cloud, and someone who seemed to be the Son of Man was sitting on the cloud. He wore a gold crown on his head and held a sharp sickle in his hand.
15. An angel came out of the temple and shouted, “Start cutting with your sickle! Harvest season is here, and all crops on earth are ripe.”
16. The one on the cloud swung his sickle and harvested the crops.
17. Another angel with a sharp sickle then came out of the temple in heaven.
18. After this, an angel with power over fire came from the altar and shouted to the angel who had the sickle. He said, “All grapes on earth are ripe! Harvest them with your sharp sickle.”
19. The angel swung his sickle on earth and cut off its grapes. He threw them into a pit where they were trampled on as a sign of God's anger.
20. The pit was outside the city, and when the grapes were squashed, blood flowed out. The blood turned into a river that was about three hundred kilometres long and almost deep enough to cover a horse.