and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and disabilities: Mary (called Magdalene), from whom seven demons had gone out,

But carefully select from among you, brothers, seven men who are well-attested, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this necessary task.

We sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and within five days we came to the others in Troas, where we stayed for seven days.

After we located the disciples, we stayed there seven days. They repeatedly told Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem.

On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.

Then I saw in the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne a scroll written on the front and back and sealed with seven seals.

Then he shouted in a loud voice like a lion roaring, and when he shouted, the seven thunders sounded their voices.

The beast that was, and is not, is himself an eighth king and yet is one of the seven, and is going to destruction.

“To the angel of the church in Sardis write the following: “This is the solemn pronouncement of the one who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a reputation that you are alive, but in reality you are dead.

Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children he left his wife to his brother.

Then he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. After he took the seven loaves and gave thanks, he broke them and began giving them to the disciples to serve. So they served the crowd.

Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, so the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from the province of Asia who had seen him in the temple area stirred up the whole crowd and seized him,

saying: “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches – to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword extended out of his mouth. His face shone like the sun shining at full strength.

Then one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered; thus he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

I looked on when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a thunderous voice, “Come!”

So he carried me away in the Spirit to a wilderness, and there I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.

But the angel said to me, “Why are you astounded? I will interpret for you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with the seven heads and ten horns that carries her.

five have fallen; one is, and the other has not yet come, but whenever he does come, he must remain for only a brief time.