Mark of the Beast

Ah, here is where the RcV said "the stroke of a sword" - in verse 14.

ESV - "wounded by the sword and yet lived."

Berean Study Bible - "wounded by the sword and yet had lived."

Berean Literal - "the wound of the sword and has lived."

KJV - "wound by a sword, and did live."

New King James - "the wound of the sword and has come to life."

Amplified Bible - " wounded [fatally] by the sword and has come back to life."

ASV - " hath the stroke of the sword and lived."

@instantkarma777 said
I am thinking it will be financially related.
everyone in the world will have a card

@rookie54 said
close

the chip has already been implanted and no physical card will be necessary

@sonship said
Ah, here is where the RcV said "the stroke of a sword" - in verse 14.

ESV - "wounded by the sword and yet lived."

Berean Study Bible - "wounded by the sword and yet had lived."

Berean Literal - "the wound of the sword and has lived."

KJV - "wound by a sword, and did live."

New King James - "the wound of the sword and ...[text shortened]... by the sword and has come back to life."

ASV - " hath the stroke of the sword and lived."

@suzianne said
Yes, thanks for answering me.

I was concentrating on verse 12, not 14.

14 does say that the beast "had the wound by a sword, and did live."

Now I am wondering how I've always missed this. I always thought the "deadly wound" might be from an assassin's bullet.

-Removed-

To someone - like me - who is not emotionally invested in the hope that all this stuff is true, and convinced that a creator being is communicating with me, it comes across a bit like a kind of 1st century QAnon.

Toward the end of this age, God will do something to clearly polarize the people of the world into one camp or the other.

Those who did not love the truth will find that they are compelled to run desperately after a lie which they can hardly resist. That is the Antichrist and his false prophet.

Here we see that God allows those who did not love the truth of the Gospel to turn their deceived devotion to a lie.

Antichrist - "the coming of whom is according to Satan's operation in all power and signs and wonders of a lie. And in all deceit of unrighteousness among those who are perishing, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

And because of this God sends to them an operation of error that they might believe the lie, so that all who have not believed the truth but have taken pleasure in unrighteousness might be judged." (2 Thess. 2:9-12)

The time to receive and cultivate "a love of the truth" is now. Those how have no love of the truth may find their devotion will go after a LIE instead. How tragic is the road to perishing.

Revelation is made known things about Jesus Christ (and other things) "by signs". He is not literally a lamb with wooly fur and a little tail. But "the Lamb" used so many time in this book is a sign pointing to the real Lord Jesus. Ie. " a Lamb standing as having been slain" or "the throne of God and of the Lamb".

God knew, it seems, that some would discard the contents of Revelation as trivial or insignificant. So right up front we are told to "keep" the things written there. We Christians are not to discard them but keep them.

"Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and KEEP the things written in it, for the time is at hand." (Rev. 1:3)

Is the book difficult? Yes.
Should we as Christian discard it because it is after all only filled with signs? No.

Not if you wish the blessing of hearing and keeping the things of this book.

@sonship said
I know what Revelation 1:1 says . . . the revelation is "made known by signs . . ."