When they had spoken, I was getting ready to write. But I heard a voice from heaven say, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said. Do not write it down.”
For you, this whole vision is like words that are sealed up in a scroll. Suppose you give it to someone who can read. And suppose you say, “Please read this for us.” Then they’ll answer, “I can’t. It’s sealed up.”
The Lord our God keeps certain things hidden. But he makes other things known to us and to our children forever. He does it so we can obey all the words of this law.
The voice said, “Write on a scroll what you see. Send it to the seven churches in Asia Minor. They are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.”
Then the voice I had heard from heaven spoke to me again. It said, “The angel is standing on the sea and on the land. Go and take the scroll from him. It is lying open in his hand.”