DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Buy or sell. The second beast has everyone, "both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave," given a brand, "so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the brand" (Revelation 13:16-17). The brand is the beast's name or the number of its name.
Why it’s interesting
The King James Version calls it "the mark of the beast," the phrase most people know. The brand mirrors an earlier mark: in chapter 7, God's servants were sealed on their foreheads first (Revelation 7:3).
Scholarly consensus
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