I was told: this translates the impersonal third plural active, “They say to me.” This probably refers to an angel, but it can refer to God.

Must: see 1.1.

Again prophesy: this is in addition to what John has already revealed in the earlier part of the book. To prophesy is to proclaim God’s message (see 1.3; 10.7).

About: most translations give the Greek preposition this meaning (see similar construction in John 12.16, “written of [about] him”). New Jerusalem Bible translates “against,” but no other translation consulted does this. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch provides a good model: “You must now proclaim again what God has planned for….”

Peoples and nations and tongues: see 5.9; here kings is added, for emphasis. Tongues: it will not be natural in many languages to say “proclaim God’s message about many … languages.” Rather, those translators will render this something like the following: “people speaking all sorts of languages.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• Then they ordered me, “You must now proclaim (or, announce) again what God has planned for the people of many nations and races, who speak all sorts of languages, and with all the kings (or, high chiefs).”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .