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Report a TypoRevelation ◦ Chapter 16
1Then I heard a mighty voice coming from the temple, instructing the seven angels: "Go now and pour out the seven bowls God’s heartbreaking disengagement upon the earth."2The first angel poured out his bowl on the land–symbolizing God's love granting people their final choice of rejecting him, and allowing them to reap the consequences of their choice by no longer shielding them with his protective hand–and ugly and painful sores broke out on those who had marked themselves as loyal to the beast by closing their hearts to God and modeling themselves in the image of the beast by practicing his methods of coercion and force.3The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea–symbolizing the withdrawing of God’s protective and life–sustaining presence from the earth — and the oceans became like the blood of a dead person, no longer circulating properly and therefore no longer sustaining life; and every type of creature in the seas began to die.4The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and fresh water springs–symbolizing the withdrawing of God’s protective and life-sustaining presence from the earth–and the waters became poisoned and no longer sustained life.5Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters of truth say: "You are so right in your actions–you who are the source of life, the Holy One–because your diagnosis is right: They are unhealable,6for they have rejected your Remedy and killed your friends and spokespersons who brought it; so you have granted them the death they have chosen."7And I heard the heart-response of God's healed friends: "Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and right are your diagnoses and actions."8The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun–symbolic of the withdrawing of God’s protective and life-sustaining presence from the earth–and solar radiation increased on the earth, scorching people with its rays:9they were burned by the intense heat and blamed God for causing it, because, as they closed their hearts, he had withdrawn his protective presence and control over nature; but they refused to turn away from selfishness and open their hearts to God and glorify him by partaking of the Remedy.10The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the beast's seat of power–symbolizing God's restraining and sustaining presence being withdrawn–and the kingdom of the beast was plunged into the most horrendous moral darkness the world has ever known: people wailed in agony, chewed their tongues in misery,11and blamed the God of heaven, claiming–as the beast always does–that God was inflicting the pain and sores upon them; but they refused to turn away from selfishness and from what they had done.12The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates — symbolizing the withdrawing of God's forces of righteousness as a shield against the kings from the East symbolic of the corrupting powers of mysticism.13I saw three spirits whose minds had not been cleansed of the lies about God. They looked like frogs catching their prey with their lying tongues. They came telling the lies of mysticism and spiritualism from the dragon, the lies of coercion and force from the beast, and the lies of pagan appeasement theology from the false prophet.14They are the spiritual movements of fallen angels–demons who perform miracles and go to the rulers of the world to unite them in war against the truth about God and his methods of love, on the great day of God Almighty.15"Understand this: To the unhealed, my coming will be unexpected — like that of a thief. But the healed, who have guarded their hearts and kept their characters pure, will be happy at my coming and will not be shamed by the exposure of an unhealed character."16Then the demonic forces united the nations together in their opposition to God and his methods of love, bringing them to what is known in Hebrew as Harmageddon, or The Mount of Assembly,–the mountain where God rules.17The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air–symbolizing God's restraining and protective presence being completely removed from the earth. And out of the temple, from God's throne, came a mighty voice, saying, "It is done!"18followed by flashes of insight, rumblings of change, thundering of opposition, and a severe shaking of the peoples' minds. No breaking of humanity has ever been so great–so tremendous was the fracturing of society.19The great city — symbolic of the nations united against God — split back into its three parts: mysticism, humanism, and paganism. The cities of the world collapsed into anarchy and chaos. God remembered Babylon the Great and set her free to reap the fury and wrath that separation from God causes.20Every island of cooperation vanished; every mountain of worship was lost.21From heaven came a great hailstorm of crushing truth falling upon the minds of the people. They cursed God, blaming him for the suffering that the hailstorm of truth caused upon their unhealed minds, because the weight of truth was so terribly painful.