This must synchronize with the final conflict, (symbolized in Rev. 19:19-21): also with the casting of the vine of the earth into the wine-press of God’s wrath (14:19), and terminates the battle of “Armageddon,”—the “battle of that great day of God Almighty,” 16:14. The Judgment of the Harlot. “And one of the seven angels, who had the seven bowls, came and talked with me, saying, Come here; I will show thee the judgment of the great harlot who sitteth on many waters; 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.” Rev. 17:1, 2. The Roman hierarchy had been frequently referred to in the preceding visions; but an institution, so interwoven with the history of the nations, required a more full and minute symbolization. The subject of this vision is announced to the revelator, by one of the angels who had the seven vials;—very probably, the seventh. The harlot is identified as one “that sitteth upon many waters.” Ancient Babylon was thus addressed: “O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness,” Jer. 51:13. She is also described as “The well-favored _harlot_, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts,” Nahum 3:4. Therefore the harlot whose judgment is to be more minutely shown, is the city of the previous vision, which received the cup of the wine of God’s wrath (16:19), and which probably was shown to John on the waters of the Euphrates, (16:12); for the reference indicates that she had been thus previously exhibited,—the waters on which she was seated, being the people, nations, &c., which sustained and defended her idolatries, 17:15. In the vision now to be shown John, the Roman hierarchy is symbolized by Babylon; but it is first exhibited as: A Woman on a Scarlet-Colored Beast. “And he carried me away in spirit into a desert: and I saw a woman seated on a crimson-colored wild beast, full of names of reviling, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and crimson, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead a name was written, A SECRET: BABYLON, THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus; and when I saw her I wondered greatly.” Rev. 17:3-6.