¹ Then I was given a long cane like a measuring rod, and I was told, 'Get up and measure God's sanctuary, and the altar, and the people who worship there;

² but exclude the outer court and do not measure it, because it has been handed over to gentiles -- they will trample on the holy city for forty-two months.

³ But I shall send my two witnesses to prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, wearing sackcloth.

⁴ These are the two olive trees and the two lamps in attendance on the Lord of the world.

⁵ Fire comes from their mouths and consumes their enemies if anyone tries to harm them; and anyone who tries to harm them will certainly be killed in this way.

⁶ They have the power to lock up the sky so that it does not rain as long as they are prophesying; they have the power to turn water into blood and strike the whole world with any plague as often as they like.

⁷ When they have completed their witnessing, the beast that comes out of the Abyss is going to make war on them and overcome them and kill them.

⁸ Their corpses lie in the main street of the great city known by the symbolic names Sodom and Egypt, in which their Lord was crucified.

⁹ People of every race, tribe, language and nation stare at their corpses, for three-and-a-half days, not letting them be buried,

¹⁰ and the people of the world are glad about it and celebrate the event by giving presents to each other, because these two prophets have been a plague to the people of the world.'

¹¹ After the three-and-a-half days, God breathed life into them and they stood up on their feet, and everybody who saw it happen was terrified;

¹² then I heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, 'Come up here,' and while their enemies were watching, they went up to heaven in a cloud.

¹³ Immediately, there was a violent earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed; seven thousand persons were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors, overcome with fear, could only praise the God of heaven.

¹⁴ That was the second of the disasters; the third is to come quickly after it.

¹⁵ Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and voices could be heard shouting in heaven, calling, 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.'

¹⁶ The twenty-four elders, enthroned in the presence of God, prostrated themselves and touched the ground with their foreheads worshipping God

¹⁷ with these words, 'We give thanks to you, Almighty Lord God, He who is, He who was, for assuming your great power and beginning your reign.

¹⁸ The nations were in uproar and now the time has come for your retribution, and for the dead to be judged, and for your servants the prophets, for the saints and for those who fear your name, small and great alike, to be rewarded. The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth.'

¹⁹ Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake and violent hail.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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