St. Michael and All Angels (September 29)

¹⁰Then a hand touched me and pulled me up, trembling, to my hands and knees. ¹¹He said to me, “Daniel, you are a highly valued man. Understand the words that I am speaking to you. Stand up where you are, because now I have been sent to you.” When he spoke this word to me, I stood up, shaking.

¹²He said to me, “Do not be afraid, Daniel, because from the first day that you began to commit your heart to gaining understanding and to humbling yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come in response to your words. ¹³However, an officer of the kingdom of Persia was standing against me for twenty-one days. Yet Michael, one of the chief officers, came to help me, for I had been left there against the kings of Persia. ¹⁴I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the latter days, because the vision concerns days still to come.”

^12:1Then at that time, Michael, the great prince who stands over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress that has not happened from the first time that there was a nation until that time.

At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. ²Many who are sleeping in the dusty ground will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, to everlasting contempt. ³Those who have insight will shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who bring many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever.

⁷There was also a war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon. The dragon fought back along with his angels, ⁸but he was not strong enough. There was no longer a place for them in heaven. ⁹The great dragon was thrown down—the ancient serpent, the one called the Devil and Satan, the one who leads the whole inhabited earth astray—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

¹⁰I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying:

Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God

and the authority of his Christ,

because the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down,

the one who accuses them before our God day and night.

¹¹They conquered him

because of the blood of the Lamb and

because of the word of their testimony.

They did not love their lives in the face of death.

¹²For this reason, rejoice, you heavens and those who dwell in them.

Woe to the earth and the sea,

for the Devil has gone down to you.

He is full of rage, because he knows that his time is short.

¹⁷The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”

¹⁸He told them, “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹Look, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing will ever harm you. ²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names have been written in heaven.”