Revelation 22:6-21

Context

A Final Reminder

22:6 Then¹ the angel² said to me, “These words are reliable³ and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants⁴ what must happen soon.”

22:7 (Look! I am coming soon!

Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy expressed in this book.)⁵

22:8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things,⁶ and when I heard and saw them,⁷ I threw myself down⁸ to worship at the feet of the angel who was showing them to me. 22:9 But⁹ he said to me, “Do not do this!¹⁰ I am a fellow servant¹¹ with you and with your brothers the prophets, and with those who obey¹² the words of this book. Worship God!” 22:10 Then¹³ he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy contained in this book, because the time is near. 22:11 The evildoer must continue to do evil,¹⁴ and the one who is morally filthy¹⁵ must continue to be filthy. The¹⁶ one who is righteous must continue to act righteously, and the one who is holy must continue to be holy.”

22:12 (Look! I am coming soon,

and my reward is with me to pay¹⁷ each one according to what he has done!

22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega,

the first and the last,

the beginning and the end!)¹⁸

22:14 Blessed are those who wash their robes so they can have access¹⁹ to the tree of life and can enter into the city by the gates. 22:15 Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers²⁰ and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood!²¹

22:16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star!”²² 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say: “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge.

22:18 I testify to the one who hears the words of the prophecy contained in this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described²³ in this book. 22:19 And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life²⁴ and in the holy city that are described in this book.

22:20 The one who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.²⁵

[22:6] ¹tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[22:6] ²tn Grk “he”; the referent (the angel mentioned in 21:9, 15; 22:1) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:6] ³tn Grk “faithful.”

[22:6] ⁴tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

[22:7] ⁵sn These lines are parenthetical, forming an aside to the narrative. The speaker here is the Lord Jesus Christ himself rather than the narrator.

[22:8] ⁶tn Or “I am John, the one who heard and saw these things.”

[22:8] ⁷tn The pronoun “them” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[22:8] ⁸tn Grk “I fell down and worshiped at the feet.” BDAG 815 s.v. πίπτω 1.b.α.ב. has “fall down, throw oneself to the ground as a sign of devotion or humility, before high-ranking persons or divine beings.”

[22:9] ⁹tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present here.

[22:9] ¹⁰tn On the elliptical expression ὅρα μή ({ora mh) BDAG 720 s.v. ὁράω B.2 states: “Elliptically…ὅρα μή (sc. ποιήσῃς) watch out! don’t do that! Rv 19:10; 22:9.”

[22:9] ¹¹tn Grk “fellow slave.” Though σύνδουλος (sundoulos) is here translated “fellow servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

[22:9] ¹²tn Grk “keep” (an idiom for obedience).

[22:10] ¹³tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[22:11] ¹⁴tn Grk “must do evil still.”

[22:11] ¹⁵tn For this translation see L&N 88.258; the term refers to living in moral filth.

[22:11] ¹⁶tn Grk “filthy, and the.” This is a continuation of the previous sentence in Greek, but because of the length and complexity of the construction a new sentence was started in the translation.

[22:12] ¹⁷tn The Greek term may be translated either “pay” or “pay back” and has something of a double meaning here. However, because of the mention of “wages” (“reward,” another wordplay with two meanings) in the previous clause, the translation “pay” for ἀποδοῦναι (apodounai) was used here.

[22:13] ¹⁸sn These lines are parenthetical, forming an aside to the narrative. The speaker here is the Lord Jesus Christ himself rather than the narrator.

[22:14] ¹⁹tn Grk “so that there will be to them authority over the tree of life.”

[22:15] ²⁰tn On the term φάρμακοι (farmakoi) see L&N 53.101.

[22:15] ²¹tn Or “lying,” “deceit.”

[22:16] ²²tn On this expression BDAG 892 s.v. πρωϊνός states, “early, belonging to the morning ὁ ἀστὴρ ὁ πρ. the morning star, Venus Rv 2:28; 22:16.”

[22:18] ²³tn Grk “written.”

[22:19] ²⁴tc The Textus Receptus, on which the KJV rests, reads “the book” of life (ἀπὸ βίβλου, apo biblou) instead of “the tree” of life. When the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the NT he had access to no Greek mss for the last six verses of Revelation. So he translated the Latin Vulgate back into Greek at this point. As a result he created seventeen textual variants which were not in any Greek mss. The most notorious of these is this reading. It is thus decidedly inauthentic, while “the tree” of life, found in the best and virtually all Greek mss, is clearly authentic. The confusion was most likely due to an intra-Latin switch: The form of the word for “tree” in Latin in this passage is ligno; the word for “book” is libro. The two-letter difference accounts for an accidental alteration in some Latin mss; that “book of life” as well as “tree of life” is a common expression in the Apocalypse probably accounts for why this was not noticed by Erasmus or the KJV translators. (This textual problem is not discussed in NA²⁷.)

[22:21] ²⁵tc Most mss (א Ï) read “amen” (ἀμήν, amhn) after “all” (πάντων, pantwn). It is, however, not found in other important mss (A 1006 1841 pc). It is easier to account for its addition than its omission from the text if original. Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant.