if those, I say, fell away, it would be impossible to bring them again to repentance; they would be crucifying the Son of God over again for themselves, and exposing him to open contempt.
Like Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns near them, which gave themselves up to fornication, and fell into unnatural vice, these angels now stand out as a warning, undergoing, as they are, the punishment of aeonian fire.
At that very time a great earthquake occurred. A tenth part of the city fell, and seven thousand people perished in the earthquake. Those who escaped were much terrified, and praised the God of Heaven.
Men of all peoples, and tribes, and languages, and nations look at their dead bodies for three days and a half, and do not allow them to be laid in a grave.
The 'grapes were trodden in the press' outside the city; and blood came out of the press, rising as high as the bridles of the horses for a distance of two hundred miles.
Then a second angel followed, crying-- 'She has fallen! She has fallen--Babylon the Great, who has made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her licentiousness!'
and the great City was torn in three, and the cities of the nation fell, and God remembered Babylon the Great, and gave her the maddening wine-cup of his Wrath;
Then one of the seven angels who held the seven bowls came and spoke to me. 'Come here,' he said, 'and I will show you the sentence passed upon that Great Harlot who is seated at the meeting of many waters,
while they stand at a distance, horrified at her torture, and cry-- 'Alas! Alas! Great City! O mighty City of Babylon! In a single hour your judgment fell.
With a mighty voice he cried-- 'She has fallen! She has fallen--Babylon the Great! She has become an abode of demons, a stronghold of every wicked spirit, a stronghold of every foul and hateful bird.
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and threw it into the sea, crying-- 'So shall Babylon, the Great City, be violently overthrown, never more to be seen.