3 And the angel carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, where I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.”

4 The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.

— Revelation 17:3-4

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool.

— Isaiah 1:18

Then I saw a beast with ten horns and seven heads rising out of the sea. There were ten royal crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.

— Revelation 13:1

Then another sign appeared in heaven: a huge red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven royal crowns on his heads.

–Revelation 12:3

Thoughts on Today’s Reading

Grace, mercy and salvation from Christ to you.

In Revelation 17:3 John says the angel carried him in the Spirit into the wilderness and he saw the woman (the prostitute) seated on a scarlet beast. Scarlet and crimson represent deep sin. The beast has seven heads and ten horns like the beast from the sea in Revelation 13:1. The beast operates as the devil’s agent. Satan, the great red dragon, is also portrayed with seven heads and ten horns. The beast, audaciously covered with blasphemous names, declares great disdain for God.

Revelation 17:4 shows the brazenly painted woman, the prostitute, is robed and bejeweled with royalty’s extravagant wealth and holds in her hand a golden cup full of abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. She exudes a revolting mixture of beauty and pompous depravity. Her glamorous outward attire conceals a filthy and ugly inward spirit. She represents hardiness and debauchery—characteristics to be abhorred rather than admired. The abominable things in her cup have reflected idolatrous beliefs and practices often associated with the imperial cult from Rome, which would parallel the calamities of the end days.