Revelation 18 — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
Chapter 18
Babylon has fallen
Verse 18:1
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated from his glory.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The earth is illuminated by the descending angel's glory. Angelic radiance does not by itself make him the divine speaker or justify capitalized personal pronouns.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:2
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she became a dwelling of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit and a prison of every unclean bird and a prison of every unclean and hated beast,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The clause about every unclean and hated beast is present as well as the spirit and bird clauses. Prison renders phylakē, also a guarded haunt or holding place.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:3
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
because all the nations have fallen from the wine of the fury of her sexual immorality, and the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth became rich from the power of her luxury.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Have fallen renders peptōkan; the accessed verb is not have drunk.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Come out, My people
Verse 18:4
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, My people, so that you may not share in her sins and may not receive from her plagues,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The heavenly summons addresses My people and joins avoidance of shared sins with avoidance of shared plagues. Both reasons for departure remain explicit.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:5
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
because her sins have piled up as far as heaven, and God remembered her wrongdoings.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The sins reach heaven in a piling-up image. God remembers her wrongdoings as the basis of the announced reckoning.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:6
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
Repay her as she also repaid, and double the double according to her works; in the cup in which she mixed, mix a double portion for her.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Double the double preserves the emphatic repetition rather than silently reducing it to a single adjective.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:7
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
As much as she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so much torment and mourning give her, because in her heart she says, ‘I sit a queen, and I am not a widow, and I will certainly not see mourning.’
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: As much as and so much establish correspondence between self-glorifying luxury and torment. The queen's denial of widowhood and mourning is quoted as her boast.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:8
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
For this reason in one day her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire, because the Lord God who judged her is mighty.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: One day emphasizes the sudden arrival of death, mourning and famine. Burning follows, grounded in the judging Lord's strength.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
The lament of kings and merchants
Verse 18:9
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and mourn over her when they see the smoke of her burning,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The kings who shared her luxury now mourn when they see smoke. Their lament does not state repentance for participation in her deeds.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:10
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
standing far away because of the fear of her torment, saying, “Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the mighty city, because in one hour your judgment came!”
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Distance is explicitly motivated by fear of her torment. The doubled woe and single hour contrast former might with sudden judgment.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:11
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargo any more:
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The merchants' stated reason for grief is lost demand for their cargo. The following inventory explains what can no longer be sold.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:12
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
cargo of gold and silver and precious stone and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet, and every fragrant wood and every ivory vessel and every vessel of most precious wood and bronze and iron and marble,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Fragrant wood renders thyinon, an aromatic wood; the exact botanical identification remains open.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:13
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
and cinnamon and amomum and incense and ointment and frankincense and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and horses and carriages and slaves—human lives.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Amomum retains the ancient aromatic name without assigning a disputed modern species. Slaves—human lives renders bodies and souls of human beings in the human-trafficking cargo list, with the latter phrase read explanatorily.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:14
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And the fruit your soul desired went away from you, and all the rich and splendid things perished from you, and they will certainly not find them any more.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: They will not find is third-person plural; it is not replaced with you will not find.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:15
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
The merchants of these things, who became rich from her, will stand far away because of fear of her torment, weeping and mourning,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: These merchants became rich from the city's trade but stand at a distance in fear. Their wealth and their mourning remain linked by the same commercial relation.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:16
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
saying, “Woe, woe, the great city, clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stone and pearl,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The city is personified in expensive clothing and adornment, repeating the woman's colors in 17:4. Pearl is singular in this selected phrase.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:17
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
because in one hour so great a wealth was made desolate!” And every helmsman and everyone sailing from place to place, and sailors and as many as work the sea, stood far away,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Sailing from place to place is the chosen sense of ho epi topon pleōn; coastal voyagers or passengers are alternative interpretations.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:18
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
and cried as they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, “What is like the great city?”
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The seafarers' question concerns the great city's former incomparable status while they watch its smoke; it is part of a lament.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:19
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And they threw dust upon their heads and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, “Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships in the sea became rich from her costly wealth, because in one hour she was made desolate!”
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Dust on heads marks mourning. The shipping owners remember enrichment through the city's costly goods as they repeat the one-hour devastation refrain.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:20
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
Rejoice over her, heaven and saints and apostles and prophets, because God has judged your case against her.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Your case renders to krima hymōn, the judgment concerning the addressed witnesses, executed against the city.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
The millstone and the silence
Verse 18:21
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And one mighty angel lifted a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “In this way Babylon the great city will be thrown with a rush, and will certainly not be found any more.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: A millstone-like stone's forceful casting enacts Babylon's coming fall. The emphatic negative says she will no longer be found.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:22
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And the sound of lyre players and musicians and flute players and trumpeters will certainly not be heard in you any more, and any craftsman of any craft will certainly not be found in you any more, and the sound of a mill will certainly not be heard in you any more,
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Music, craftsmanship and milling cease in three emphatic clauses. Each everyday activity contributes to the portrayal of an emptied city.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:23
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
and the light of a lamp will certainly not shine in you any more, and the voice of bridegroom and bride will certainly not be heard in you any more, because your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because by your sorcery all the nations were deceived.
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: Sorcery renders pharmakeia, related to the magical-preparation term at 9:21. The text supplies no present-day commercial or medical identification.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.
Verse 18:24
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
And in her was found blood of prophets and saints and of all those slaughtered upon the earth.”
Textual & Reception Notes
Textual [G]: The final accusation extends beyond prophets and saints to all slaughtered on earth. Its comprehensive charge remains part of the vision's indictment.
Reception: No passage-specific reception verified in this review.