In Context

3 and he carried me away to a wilderness in the Spirit, and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of evil-speaking, having seven heads and ten horns,

4 and the woman was arrayed with purple and scarlet-colour, and gilded with gold, and precious stone, and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and uncleanness of her whoredom,

5 and upon her forehead was a name written: 'Secret, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Whores, and the Abominations of the earth.'

6 And I saw the woman drunken from the blood of the saints, and from the blood of the witnesses of Jesus, and I did wonder — having seen her — with great wonder;

7 and the messenger said to me, 'Wherefore didst thou wonder? I — I will tell thee the secret of the woman and of the beast that is carrying her, which hath the seven heads and the ten horns.

8 'The beast that thou didst see: it was, and it is not; and it is about to come up out of the abyss, and to go away to destruction, and wonder shall those dwelling upon the earth, whose names have not been written upon the scroll of the life from the foundation of the world, beholding the beast that was, and is not, although it is.

Revelation 17:6 in Other Translations