When the seven thunders spoke, I started to write. But I heard a voice from heaven say, “Keep hidden what the seven thunders said, and do not write them down.”
This vision is like the words of a book that is closed and sealed. You may give the book to someone who can read and tell that person to read it. But he will say, “I can’t read the book, because it is sealed.”
“But you, Daniel, close up the book and seal it. These things will happen at the time of the end. Many people will go here and there to find true knowledge.”
“The vision that has been shown to you about these evenings and mornings is true. But seal up the vision, because those things won’t happen for a long time.”
There are some things the Lord our God has kept secret, but there are some things he has let us know. These things belong to us and our children forever so that we will do everything in these teachings.
The voice said, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”
Then I heard the same voice from heaven again, saying to me: “Go and take the open scroll that is in the hand of the angel that is standing on the sea and on the land.”