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Revelation · Berean Standard Bible

Revelation 4 Berean Standard Bible

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  • Protestant
  • OT: Masoretic Hebrew
  • NT: Critical text
  • Protestant (66 books)
  • Formal (word for word)
  • 2022
  • Public domain

Audio: World English Bible (WEB), read by Winfred W. Henson · About the recordings

1 After this I looked and saw a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had previously heard speak to me like a trumpet was saying, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after these things.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne standing in heaven, with someone seated on it. 3 The One seated there looked like jasper and carnelian, and a rainbow that gleamed like an emerald encircled the throne. 4 Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and on these thrones sat twenty-four elders dressed in white, with golden crowns on their heads. 5 From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings, and peals of thunder. Before the throne burned seven torches of fire. These are the seven Spirits of God. 6 And before the throne was something like a sea of glass, as clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, covered with eyes in front and back. 7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second like a calf, the third had a face like a man, and the fourth was like an eagle in flight. 8 And each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around and within. Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” 9 And whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the One seated on the throne who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before the One seated on the throne, and they worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying: 11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and came to be.”

Cross references (11)

Related passages for each verse, from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge as collected and ranked by readers at OpenBible.info.

  1. 1 Revelation 11:12; Exodus 24:12; Revelation 1:19; Revelation 1:10; Mark 1:10
  2. 2 Revelation 1:10; 1 Kings 22:19; Isaiah 6:1; Ezekiel 3:12–14; Ezekiel 1:26
  3. 3 Ezekiel 1:28; Revelation 21:11; Genesis 9:13–16; Revelation 10:1; Ezekiel 28:13
  4. 4 Matthew 19:28; Revelation 11:16; Revelation 4:10; Revelation 7:11; Revelation 20:4
  5. 5 Revelation 11:19; Revelation 8:5; Revelation 1:4; Revelation 5:6; Revelation 16:17–18
  6. 6 Revelation 15:2; Revelation 5:6; Revelation 4:8–9; Revelation 14:3; Ezekiel 10:12
  7. 7 Ezekiel 10:14; Ezekiel 1:10; Ezekiel 10:21; Ezekiel 1:8; Revelation 4:6
  8. 8 Isaiah 6:2–13; Revelation 1:8; Hebrews 13:8; Revelation 4:6; Exodus 15:11
  9. 9 Revelation 5:13–14; Revelation 7:11–12; Revelation 10:6; Revelation 15:7; Psalm 47:8
  10. 10 Revelation 5:8; Psalm 95:6; Revelation 19:4; Revelation 11:16; 1 Chronicles 29:11–16
  11. 11 Colossians 1:16–17; Revelation 5:12; Isaiah 40:28; Proverbs 16:4; John 1:1–3

Cross references: OpenBible.info (CC BY), drawn mainly from the public-domain Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. · Sources & licences

What the Fathers said

Passages from the Church Fathers that expound or quote this chapter, verbatim from the public-domain Schaff edition (19th-century English translations).

How these were chosen

“Commentary” is the opening of a homily or exposition on this chapter (John Chrysostom’s homilies, Augustine’s tractates, sermons and expositions of the Psalms). “Quotes” are sentences where the edition’s own footnotes identify a quotation of a verse here, kept only when the wording matches the verse. Only works whose authorship is not in doubt are used. Psalms follow the Hebrew/English numbering (Augustine numbers them as the Septuagint does: his Psalm 50 is Psalm 51 here).

  1. Quotes verse 4:7 Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter XI)

    For, [as the Scripture] says, "The first living creature was like a lion," symbolizing His effectual working, His leadership, and royal power; the second [living creature] was like a calf, signifying [His] sacrificial and sacerdotal order; but "the third had, as it were, the face as of a man,"--an evident description of His advent as a human being; "the fourth …

    Read in context · Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885)