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REVELATION  - 
The Seven Last Plagues.
seven angels with the seven last plagues, for through them 15
God’s fury is accomplished.
2Then I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with re.* On the
sea of glass were standing those who had won the victory over the beast and its image and the number that signi ed its name. They were holding God’s harps,a 3and they sang the song of Moses,* the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:
“Great and wonderful are your works, Lord God almighty.
Just and true are your ways, O king of the nations.b
4Who will not fear you, Lord, or glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All the nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”c
5* After this I had another vision. The temple that is the heavenly tent of testimony* opened, 6and the seven angels with the seven plagues came out of the temple. They were dressed in clean white linen, with a gold sash around their chests.d 7One of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven gold bowls lled with the fury of God, who lives forever and ever. 8Then the temple became so lled with the smoke from God’s glory and might that no one could enter it until the seven plagues of the seven angels had been accomplished.e
The Seven Bowls.*
161I heard a loud voice speaking from the temple to the seven
angels, “Go and pour out the seven bowls of God’s fury upon the earth.”
2The rst angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth. Festering and ugly sores broke out on those who had the mark of the beast or worshiped its image.*
3* The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea. The sea turned to blood like that from a corpse; every creature living in the sea died.
4The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of
1* Then I saw in heaven another sign,* great and awe-inspiring:
15:3
The song of Moses in Exodus 15 is a song of praise and thanksgiving to God after the deliverance of Israel
and the destruction of
the Egyptian forces.
“I will sing to the LORD,
for he is gloriously
triumphant; horse and chariot he has cast into the sea.
My strength
and my refuge
is the LORD,
and he has become
my savior.
This is my God, I praise him; the God of my father,
I extol him.
The LORD is a warrior,
LORD is his name!
Pharaoh’s chariots and
army he hurled into the sea; the elite of his o cers
were drowned in the Red Sea” (Exodus 12:1-3).
Like the plagues of Egypt described in Exodus 7-12, the earth is a icted with sores, blood, re, and darkness.
CHAPTER 15
a. [15:2] 7:9, 14; 13:15–18.
b. [15:3] Ps 92:6; 98:1 / Dt 32:4; Ps 145:17.
c. [15:4] Ps 86:9–10; Jer 10:7.
d. [15:6] 19:8.
e. [15:8] 1 Kgs 8:10; Is 6:4.
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* [15:1–16:21] The seven bowls, the third and last group of seven after the seven seals and the seven trumpets, foreshadow the nal cataclysm. Again, the series is introduced by a heavenly prelude, in which the victors over the beast sing the canticle of Moses (Rev 15:2–4).
* [15:1–4] A vision of the victorious martyrs precedes the vision of woe in Rev 15:5–16:21; cf. Rev 7:9–12.
* [15:2] Mingled with re: re symbolizes the sanctity involved in facing God, re ected in the trials that have prepared the victorious Christians or in God’s wrath.
* [15:3] The song of Moses: the song that Moses and the Israelites sang after their escape from the oppression of Egypt (Ex 15:1–18). The martyrs have escaped from the oppression of the Devil. Nations: many other Greek manuscripts and versions read “ages.”
* [15:5–8] Seven angels receive the bowls of God’s wrath.
* [15:5] Tent of testimony: the name of the meeting tent in the Greek text of Ex 40.
Cf. 2 Mc 2:4–7.
* [16:1–21] These seven bowls, like the seven seals (Rev 6:1–17; 8:1) and the seven trumpets
(Rev 8:2–9:21; 11:15–19), bring on a succession of disasters modeled in part on the plagues of
Egypt (Ex 7–12). See note on Rev 6:12–14.
* [16:2] Like the sixth Egyptian plague (Ex 9:8–11).
* [16:3–4] Like the rst Egyptian plague (Ex 7:20–21). The same woe followed the blowing of the
second trumpet (Rev 8:8–9).