Revelation 20
The full text of Revelation 20 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, holding the key to the Abyss and a great chain in his hand.
2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
3 He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.
4 I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
5 (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.
6 Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.
7 When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison
8 and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth — Gog and Magog — and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore.
9 They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.
10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.
14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.
15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Translation notes (8)
- Revelation 20:2a The fourfold identification gathers the Bible's chief names for the adversary: drakōn, 'dragon'; ophis ho archaios, 'the ancient serpent', recalling Genesis 3; diabolos, 'slanderer'; and Satanas, from Hebrew satan (שָׂטָן), 'adversary', the accuser of Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3. Diabolos is the word the Septuagint regularly uses to translate satan, so the last two titles are Greek and Hebrew forms of one figure.
- Revelation 20:4a The Greek pepelekismenōn (πεπελεκισμένων), 'beheaded', derives from pelekys, 'axe', the instrument of Roman execution for citizens. The clause krima edothē autois, literally 'judgment was given to them', is rendered here as 'given authority to judge'. The verb ezēsan, 'they came to life', is the same word used of the rest of the dead in the following verse, a point central to debates over the millennium.
- Revelation 20:5a The opening sentence is often treated as a parenthetical aside; some have proposed it is a later gloss on internal grounds, though extant Greek manuscripts include it. The verb ezesan, 'came to life', and the phrase anastasis prote, 'first resurrection', are taken by some as bodily and by others as spiritual or symbolic.
- Revelation 20:8a Gog and Magog recall Ezekiel 38-39, where Gog is a prince from the land of Magog who leads a final assault on Israel; here both names designate the deceived nations themselves. The phrase 'like the sand on the seashore' echoes a common Hebrew idiom for an innumerable host, as in Joshua 11:4 and Judges 7:12.
- Revelation 20:9a Early Greek witnesses read ek tou ouranou, 'from heaven.' Many later Byzantine manuscripts add apo tou theou, 'from God' (ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ), yielding 'from God out of heaven,' reflected in the King James tradition.
- Revelation 20:12a The Greek biblia, 'books', refers to scrolls. These contain the record of human deeds, distinct from the biblion tēs zōēs, 'book of life', which records the names of the redeemed.
- Revelation 20:13a Hades transliterates Greek hades, 'the realm of the dead', roughly the equivalent of Hebrew sheol (שְׁאוֹל). Together with thanatos, 'death', both are personified as powers compelled to give up their dead for judgment.
- Revelation 20:14a The phrase ho thanatos ho deuteros (ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος), 'the second death', appears in the New Testament only in Revelation (2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8), and here John himself supplies its definition. Hades, the Greek name for the realm of the dead, is retained as a proper noun rather than glossed, since it is personified alongside death as an object cast into the lake of fire.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is a new translation of the Bible prepared by Trinity Bible — rendered from the original Greek and faithful to the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Finished in 2026, it is the most modern English Bible translation you can read today, and it is available only through Trinity Bible. All 66 books, including Revelation, are free to read on this site.
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