Summary
Chapter 13 – difficult chapter to understand especially vs 4 onwards. Question: who gave the beast the power vs 7?
Vs 16 he forced everyone…to receive the mark on his right hand or on his forehead…666.
Revelation 13:7-8,14,16-18
[7]It was allowed to fight against God’s people and to defeat them, and it was given authority over every tribe, nation, language, and race.
[8]All people living on earth will worship it, except those whose names were written before the creation of the world in the book of the living which belongs to the Lamb that was killed.
[14]And it deceived all the people living on earth by means of the miracles which it was allowed to perform in the presence of the first beast. The beast told them to build an image in honour of the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived.
[16]The beast forced all the people, small and great, rich and poor, slave and free, to have a mark placed on their right-hands or on their foreheads.
[17]No one could buy or sell without having this mark, that is, the beast’s name or the number that stands for the name.
[18]This calls for wisdom. Whoever is intelligent can work out the meaning of the number of the beast, because the number stands for a human name. Its number is 666.