¹⁸ Children, it is the last hour [the end of this age]; and just as you heard that the antichrist is coming [the one who will oppose Christ and attempt to replace Him], even now many antichrists (false teachers) have appeared, which confirms our belief that it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us [seeming at first to be Christians], but they were not really of us [because they were not truly born again and spiritually transformed]; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out [teaching false doctrine], so that it would be clearly shown that none of them are of us.

² By this you know and recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges and confesses [the fact] that Jesus Christ has [actually] come in the flesh [as a man] is from God [God is its source]; ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus [acknowledging that He has come in the flesh, but would deny any of the Son’s true nature] is not of God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and is now already in the world.

³ Let no one in any way deceive or entrap you, for that day will not come unless the ^[a]apostasy comes first [that is, the great rebellion, the abandonment of the faith by professed Christians], and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction [the Antichrist, the one who is destined to be destroyed],^{(A) 4} who opposes and exalts himself [so proudly and so insolently] above ^[b]every so-called god or object of worship, so that he [actually enters and] takes his seat in the temple of God, publicly proclaiming that he himself is God.^{(B) 5} Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I was telling you these things? ⁶ And you know what restrains him now [from being revealed]; it is so that he will be revealed at his own [appointed] time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness [rebellion against divine authority and the coming reign of lawlessness] is already at work; [but it is restrained] only until he who now restrains it is taken out of the way. ⁸ Then the lawless one [the Antichrist] will be revealed and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by the appearance of His coming.^{(C) 9} The coming of the [Antichrist, the lawless] one is through the activity of Satan, [attended] with great power [all kinds of counterfeit miracles] and [deceptive] signs and false wonders [all of them lies],

³ I saw one of his heads which seemed to have a fatal wound, but his fatal wound was healed; and the entire earth followed after the beast in amazement. ⁴ They fell down and worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; they also worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like (as great as) the beast, and who is able to wage war against him?”

⁷ He was also ^[a]permitted to wage war against the saints (God’s people) and to overcome them, and authority and power over every tribe and people and language and nation.^{(A) 8} All the inhabitants of the earth will fall down and worship him, everyone whose name has not been written since the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who has been slain [as a willing sacrifice].

The Beast from the Earth

¹¹ Then I saw ^[a]another beast rising up out of the earth; he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke like a dragon.^{(A) 12} He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence [when the two are together]. And he makes the earth and those who inhabit it worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

⁵ And the beast was given a mouth (the power of speech), uttering great things and arrogant and blasphemous words, and he was given freedom and authority to act and to do as he pleased for ^[a]forty-two months (three and a half years).^(A)