Revelation 1:4–15

⁴John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,^{* 5}and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and freed^a us from our sins by his blood ⁶and made us a kingdom, priests serving^b his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.^*

⁷Look! He is coming with the clouds;

every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him,

and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.

So it is to be. Amen.^*

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.^*

A Vision of Christ

⁹I, John, your brother who share with you the persecution and the kingdom and the endurance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.^{c* 10}I was in the spirit^d on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet^{* 11}saying, “Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

¹²Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,^{* 13}and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.^{* 14}His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire;^{* 15}his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.^*