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1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:
2. With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
3. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
5. And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
6. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

The verses 1,3,4 and 5 of Revelation 17 describe the judgment of the great whore, or Babylon, who has great influence world wide. Both Jerusalem and Rome are called Babylon in the Bible. The original Babylon, at the dawn of New Testament times, had long since disappeared, although at one time it was the greatest city in the world. It was after the building of the tower of Babel that God confounded the languages of the people, throwing them into confusion, and scattering them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Today there is a confusion between true Christianity and false Christianity. An example of this can be found in the parable of the wheat and the tares which is written in Matthew 13. True Christianity has been counterfeited, or confused, by false Christianity to such an extent, that only at the last judgment of Jesus can these tares be harvested from the wheat.

This false religion of the last times is called a woman and a whore, because the Bible teaches that the ecclesia, (the body of Christ), is also called the bride of Christ. (Ephesians 5:22-33) (Revelation 21) And in Ezekiel 23, the prophet calls Israel and Judah harlots because they went "Whoring" after the false gods of their neighbors. They left the great Jehovah to whom they had been joined and consorted with the idols of the heathen; therefore God delivered them into the hands of their lovers. The Bible does not call the idolatry of the heathen religions harlotry, because they never were joined

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