8 ^x“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, ^y“who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

9 I, John, your brother and ^zpartner in ^athe tribulation and ^bthe kingdom and ^cthe patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos ^don account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 ^eI was in the Spirit ^fon the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice ^glike a trumpet 11 saying, ^h“Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”