And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Revelation 11 describes a vision of two witnesses — powerful prophets sent by God to testify — who are eventually killed after completing their message. This verse describes their bodies being left unburied in the streets. In ancient cultures, leaving a body unburied was the ultimate act of contempt — it meant you had been utterly defeated and no one grieved you. The city is called "the great city" and given two loaded nicknames: Sodom, a city in Genesis known for extreme wickedness and destroyed by God, and Egypt, where God's own people were enslaved for four hundred years. Both comparisons are shocking and deliberate. The city being described is Jerusalem — identified clearly by the phrase "where also their Lord was crucified." The text is saying that Jerusalem, once the holy city of God, has become a place of oppression and spiritual darkness.
God, I've seen holy things become broken things, and sometimes I don't know what to do with that grief. Give me honesty without cynicism, and sorrow without despair. You named what was wrong here — help me trust that you also make things new. Amen.
Holy places can go very wrong. That is the uncomfortable truth this verse refuses to let you skip past. Jerusalem wasn't just any city — it was the city of the Temple, the city where God had made his name known, the city every faithful Israelite prayed toward. And this vision describes it as Sodom. As Egypt. A place where the messengers of God are left dead in the street while the crowds celebrate. This isn't safely ancient history. There's something here about what happens when religion becomes more interested in protecting itself than telling the truth — when the institution starts silencing the voices that challenge it, and calling that protection. You may have seen this. You may be recovering from it right now. The verse doesn't offer easy comfort, but it does offer this: the two witnesses get back up. God doesn't abandon his people just because the institutions around them have failed. But he also doesn't whitewash what happened. He names it — Sodom, Egypt — and then he moves. Sometimes the most honest thing faith can do is call a thing what it is, and trust that naming it is the beginning of healing.
Why do you think the text uses the names 'Sodom' and 'Egypt' to describe Jerusalem? What is John trying to communicate — and why would those two comparisons have hit especially hard for his first readers?
Have you ever been hurt or disillusioned by a church, religious community, or spiritual leader that was supposed to be safe? How has that experience shaped your faith — or your ability to trust?
This verse suggests that even the most sacred places can become corrupt. What do you think helps a community of faith stay honest and healthy over time — and what tends to erode that?
When you see something wrong in a community you're part of, what is your instinct — to speak up, stay quiet, or leave? What has shaped that instinct in you, and do you think it's serving you well?
Is there an area of your faith, or a community experience, that feels 'dead in the street' right now — something that once had life and doesn't anymore? What would it mean to hold onto the possibility that God hasn't abandoned it?
Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Matthew 10:15
And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
Revelation 14:8
And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
Revelation 18:21
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
Isaiah 26:19
And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
Matthew 11:23
Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
Hebrews 13:12
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Matthew 23:37
Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Jude 1:7
And their dead bodies will lie exposed in the open street of the great city (Jerusalem), which in a spiritual sense is called [by the symbolic and allegorical names of] Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
AMP
and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified.
ESV
And their dead bodies [will lie] in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
NASB
Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
NIV
And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
NKJV
And their bodies will lie in the main street of Jerusalem, the city that is figuratively called “Sodom” and “Egypt,” the city where their Lord was crucified.
NLT
leaving their corpses exposed on the street of the Great City spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, the same City where their Master was crucified.
MSG