The great day of their wrath: here great has the negative sense of “terrible.” This is the Day of Judgment, the final punishment. God and the Lamb act together to punish all the people on earth. Translators in some languages will need to retain a word like for in order to show the logical relationship between this verse and the former one. But in others the cry of despair may be prefaced by an expression similar to “Oh no! The terrible day…” or “Indeed, the terrible day….”

Who can stand before it?: that is, no one can survive the wrath that is coming (see Nahum 1.6).

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• Indeed the Day when God and the Lamb will punish everyone has come, and no one will be able to survive this punishment.”

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 .