Then I saw the sky open, and behold, a white horse, and the rider upon him called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and does battle. His eyes are flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, inscribed with the name which no one knows except himself, and he wears a mantle dyed in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven followed him on white horses, wearing linen white and clean. And from his mouth projects a sharp sword, so that he may strike the nations; he will shepherd them with a staff of iron; and he will trample the press of the wine of the fury of the anger of God almighty. He wears upon his mantle and upon his thigh the name written: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out in a great voice saying to all the birds that fly in the middle air: Come, gather here to the great feast of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains of thousands and the flesh of the strong and the flesh of horses and of their riders, and the flesh of all the free and the slaves and the small and the great. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to do battle with him who sits upon the horse and with his army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet, who made the portents in his presence, by which he led astray those who took the mark of the beast and worshipped his image. The two of them were cast alive into the lake of the fire that burns with sulphur. And the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword which projects from his mouth, and all the birds fed upon their flesh.
tl Then I saw an angel coming down from the sky, holding the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he seized the dragon, the ancient snake, who is the Devil and the Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and locked it and sealed it over him, so that he may lead the nations astray no longer, not until the thousand years are ended. After that he must be set free for a little time.
And I saw thrones, and there were some seated upon them, and judgment was given by them; and I saw the souls of those killed with the ax for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God, and who did not worship the beast or his image or take his mark upon their forehead and their hand. And they came to life and were kings with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.
This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is any of those who have part in the first resurrection. Over them the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and Christ, and be kings with him for the thousand years.
And when the thousand years are ended, Satan shall be set free from his prison, and will go out to lead astray the nations also who are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to lead them into battle, and their number is as the sand of the sea.
And they went up across the width of the earth, and encircled the encampment of the saints and the beloved city; and fire came down from heaven and ate them up; and the devil, who led them astray, was cast into the lake of fire and sulphur, where is also the beast, and the false prophet, and they shall be tortured day and night forever and ever.
And I saw a throne, great, white, and sitting upon it was he from whose face the earth and the sky fled, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from what was written in the books, each according to his works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in her, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each was judged according to his works. And Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
tl I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth are gone, and the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, and made ready as a bride is arrayed for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying: Behold, the tabernacle of God among men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be among them and shall wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall not be any more, nor shall sorrow nor lamentation nor pain be any more, because the first things have gone. And he who sat upon the throne said: Behold, I make all new. And he said: Write, because these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me: They have come to pass. I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. I shall give to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life, a free gift. The victor will inherit these things, and I shall be his God, and he will be my son. To the cowards and the unbelievers and the corrupt and the murderers and the fornicators and the wizards and the idolaters and all who are false, their portion shall be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.
Then there came one of the seven angels who held the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and he talked with me, saying: Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he took me away, in the spirit, to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, wearing the glory of God. Her radiance is like most precious stone, like stone of jasper that shines as crystal. She has a wall great and high, with twelve gates, and on the gates twelve angels, and names inscribed, which are of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. On the east three gates, and on the north three gates, and on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve lower courses, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
And he who was talking with me had a measuring rod of gold, to measure the city and its gates and its wall. The city is set foursquare and its length is as much as its width. And he measured the city with his rod at twelve thousand furlongs; the length and the width and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall at a hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the measurement of man, which is that of an angel. The. material of the wall is jasper, and the city is gold clear like clear glass. The lower courses of the wall of the city are adorned with every precious stone. The first course is jasper; the second sapphire; the third chalcedony; the fourth emerald; the fifth sardonyx; the sixth cornelian; the seventh chrysolite; the eighth beryl; the ninth topaz; the tenth chryso- prase; the eleventh hyacinth; the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; gate by gate each was a single pearl. The great street of the city is gold clear as translucent glass. I saw no temple in it; for the Lord God almighty is its temple; and the Lamb. And the city has no need of the sun or the moon, to shine on it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk about through its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it; and its gates shall never be closed for the day, for there will be no night there; and they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. Nor shall anything that is profane enter into it, nor anyone who practices foulness and lying, but only they who are written in the book of life of the Lamb.
4l And he showed me the river of the water of life shining like crystal and issuing from the throne of God and the Lamb. Between the great street of the city and the river which were on one side and the other was the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit month by month, and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations. Everything accursed shall be gone henceforth. And the throne of God and the Lamb shall be in it, and his slaves shall serve him, and they shall see his face, and his name shall be upon their foreheads. And there will be no night any more, nor shall they have any need of the light of the lamp and the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them, and they shall be kings forever and ever.
Then he said to me: These
words are trustworthy and true, and the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel to show his slaves what must happen soon. Behold, I shall come soon. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.
And I, John, am he who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me: See that you do not. I am your fellow slave and the fellow slave of your brothers the prophets and those who keep the words of this book. Give your worship to God.
And he said to me: Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the wrongdoer do wrong still, let the foul man be foul still, let the righteous man do right still, let the saint be saintly still. Behold, I shall come soon, and my repayment comes with me, to give to each according to his work. I am alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they who wash their robes, so that they shall have access to the tree of life and may enter by the gates into the city. Outside shall be the dogs and the wizards and the fornicators and the idolaters and all who love and do falsehood.
I Jesus sent my angel to bear witness to these things for you to the churches. I am the scion and generation of David, the shining star, the morning star.
And the Spirit and the bride say: Come. Let him who hears say: Come. Let him who is thirsty come, let him who wishes take the water of life, a free gift.
For all who hear, I bear witness to the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will inflict upon him the punishments that have been written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share of the tree of life and the holy city, which have been written in this book.
And he who bears witness to these things says: Yes, I come soon. Amen, come, Lord Jesus.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.
Notes
MARK
1.14 "After John was betrayed." John was turned in or handed over paradidomi) to the authorities, but the word frequently implies treachery, as in Judas's betrayal, 3.19, 14.18, etc.
3.12 "not to divulge what he was doing." Literally, "not to make him known."
3.18 "Cananaean." Or "the zealot," see Matthew 10.4 and Luke 6.15. Cananaean does not refer to a place.
6.3 "made it difficult for him." Eskandalizonto. See the note on Matthew 5.29. Here we are to understand that the disbelief of his own people actually impeded Jesus in the exercise of his powers. In Matthew 13.58 it merely made him unwilling.
6.22 "the daughter of Herodias." Some manuscripts would make this girl "his daughter Herodias."
6.52 "their hearts had become impenetrable." More literally, "their hearts were hardened" |perfect passive participle of poreo); but the sense is not that that they were hardhearted or pitiless, but that meaning and message did not get through to them. Compare Matthew 13.15.
7.3 "elders"; or "ancestors."
8.24 Here, as in 16.4, the word is anablepo. In neither place does the usual sense, "look up," seem to have any point. Here, possibly, the meaning is that the man recovered some sight.
The prefix ana frequently indicates that something is done again.
9.43 "Gehenna." Here I cannot do better than quote Nineham's note in full: "hell: A word with so many irrelevant associations that it is probably better to keep to the original word, Gehenna. This was a valley west of Jerusalem where at one time children were sacrified to the god Moloch |2 Kings 23.10, Jer. 7.31, 19.5f., 32.35); after being desecrated by Josiah it came to be used as a refuse dump for Jerusalem, a fact which explains the imagery of worm and fire borrowed from Isaiah 66.24 in v. 48. The suggestion is of maggots preying on offal and fires perpetually smoldering for the destruction of refuse. Because of all its bad associations, the Jewish imagination had come to picture Gehenna as the place of future torment for the wicked cf. e.g. 2 Esdras 7.36."
10.30 "now in this time . . . persecutions." I follow Nineham in thinking these words are probably spurious.
14.3 "Simon the leper." In Matthew 26.6, this scene of anointing also takes place in the house of Simon the leper. But it remains inconceivable that in this time and place any leper could have had his ownwn house and entertained guests at dinner. This Simon remains a mystery. Note, however, that in John 12.1-3, the anointing takes place in the house of Lazarus; and though this Lazarus was surely no leper, his name has in later times been constantly associated with leprosy in such terms as "lazaretto" and "lazar-house." This may be through confusion with Laz- ^s the beggar of Luke 16.20-21, who, though not described as a leper, was covered with sores. But there is no explanation of how the confusion could have existed before Mark's composition.
14.34 "keep watch." Or "stay awake." So too in 14.37.
14.46 "bound him." A little free, perhaps, but the normal sense of the word krateo, "seized him," as in 49 below, would be tau- tologous here. "Overpowered" would imply a struggle. What the verb really means is that they prevailed over him, got him into their power or under their control.
14.72 "threw himself downwn." Meaning uncertain, variously translated.
16.4 "looking again." See 8.24 and note.
16.8 In many manuscripts the Gospel of Mark ends here.
16.20 The following two sentences constitute an alternative ending to follow on 16.8.
MATTHEW
"origin" is genesis, that is, "birth," but also "genealogy." "son," that is, "descendant."
"was the father of." Literally (throughout 2-16) "begot."
1.16 "the Christ." Greek christos, "the anointed," "the Messiah."
1.18 "engaged." The engagement is regarded as a marriage except
that it has not been consummated. So Joseph is called her husband, Mary is called his wife, and the word translated "put away" is the same as that used elsewhere for "divorce."
2.1 "Magians." Magoi. In Classical Greek, Magos denotes: 1. a member of one of the tribes of the Medes; 2. a priest or seer, within the Medo-Persian empire, who must belong to this tribe. This may be the sense here, but it is not certain, and I have thought it best to leave the term as a proper name. Though Magos gives us "magic," these Magi were not necessarily magicians, and though they may well have been astrologers, to translate "astrologers" is to say more (despite the star) than the Greek does.
2.13 "Awake." Or, "when you awake." So also in verse 20.
3.1 "preaching." Here and elsewhere the word kerysso has been translated, according to convention, "preach." Literally, it denotes the activity of a herald (keiyx), the announcing or proclamation of a message; in this case, the gospel or the good news. It is thus to be distinguished from "teaching" Ididasko), for which see 4.23 and note.
4.1 "tested." The word peirazo may be translated "test" or "make trial of" | the basic meaning) or "tempt." In this case the testing is done by means of temptation.
4.12 "betrayed." See the note on Mark 1.14.
4.15 "Gentiles." The plural of ethnos, which means a nation or tribe. In the Gospels, this plural usually, but not always, signifies all who are not Jews.
4.23 "teaching." The word is didasko, to be clearly distinguished from kerysso, "preach," see note on 3.1. ' 'Teaching" covers not only such extended discourses as the "Sermon on the Mount" but also the expounding of the scriptures, the parables, and other sayings of Jesus, and answers to questions and challenges.
5.22 "fool." Greek raka; but the exact meaning is not known.
"s^rner." Greek moros, regularly "fool." But this second insult is obviously worse than the other, and I think it may not here mean "fool" but denote immorality or lewdness, a sense found several times in Euripides. "Gehenna." See Mark 9.43 and not
e.
5.29 "makes yougo amiss." The Greek verb is skandalizo. Thebasic concept is that of a physical block (skandalon) which impedes right progress or understanding and causes diversion into wrong courses, sin, or error, or at least causes difficulty. There is no one English word which will translate skandalon or skandalizo. For other notes on the term, see on Matthew 13.21, 15.12, 16.23, 17.27, 26.31; Mark 6.3.
5.47 "pagans." Ethnikoi, found here and at 6.7 and 18.17, is perhaps to be distinguished from ethne (see note on 4.15) as being more a term of reproach.
6.2 "hypocrites." Hypokrites means "actor." The people in question are here not so much dissemblers as those who put on an act, or make a big production of their good works.
6.11 "sufficient." A guess. Epiousios is rare and of uncertain meaning. Enough for the day, day by day! See below, 34.
The New Testament Page 49