12:1 Then a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, the moon beneath her feet, and a victor’s crown of twelve stars on her head.

12:2 She is pregnant and crying out because of the torture of labor pains as she is giving birth.

12:3 Another sign was also seen in heaven, and look! A huge, fiery dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with each head wearing a royal crown.

12:4 Its tail dragged a third of the stars of the sky and threw them onto the earth. It stood before the woman with the intention of consuming the child as soon as it was born.

12:5 She gave birth to a male child who is to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched up to God and his throne,

12:6 and the woman fled into the desert where there is a place prepared by God. There they will nourish her for one thousand, two hundred and sixty days.

12:7 Then there was war in heaven: Michael and his Messengers fought against the dragon, and the dragon and its Messengers fought back.

12:8 But they were not strong enough and there was no more place for them in heaven.

12:9 So the great dragon, the ancient serpent called the False Accuser and the Adversary who misleads the whole inhabited world, was thrown along with his Messengers to the earth.

12:10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now salvation, power, and the kingdom of our God has arrived, as well as the jurisdiction of his Anointed, because the accuser of our sisters and brothers, the one who accused them before God day and night, has been thrown out!

12:11 They conquered him by means of the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, even to the point of giving up their lives.

12:12 On account of this, be happy all you who live in heaven! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the False Accuser has come down to you and is filled with great rage, seeing that his time is short.”

12:13 Now when the dragon saw that it had been thrown to the earth, it pursued the woman that had given birth to the male child.

12:14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle so that she could fly from the presence of the serpent into the desert to her place to be nourished, for a time, times, and half a time.

12:15 So the serpent shot out from its mouth water like a river so it would carry her off.

12:16 But the earth helped the woman and opened up its mouth to swallow the river that the dragon had shot out of its mouth.

12:17 The dragon then went off in a rage and prepared to do battle with the rest of her offspring who guard the injunctions of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And it stood on the seashore.