✦   The Revelation of Saint John the Divine   ✦   Chapters II & III   ✦   Asia Minor, c. XCVI A.D.   ✦
✦ Revelation ii–iii ✦ Asia Minor ✦ The Seven Congregations ✦
✝   ✝   ✝

The Seven Churches
of Asia

Being a Full Account of the Seven Letters Sent by Our Lord
to the Seven Congregations of the Province of Asia Minor

Revelation II:I — III:XXII  ·  c. AD XCVI  ·  The Island of Patmos

No. II  ·  Revelation II:VIII–XI

Smyrna

The Persecuted Church

Modern İzmir, Turkey  ✦  Crown of Asia

The Letter in Full

8And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; 9I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. 10Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. 11He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
Revelation 2:8–11  ·  King James Version Also available in the NRSVue, an ecumenical modern translation
Christ's Identity

"The first and the last, which was dead, and is alive" — Christ speaks to a suffering church as the one who has already passed through death and out the other side.

Commendation

Works, tribulation, and poverty — "but thou art rich" — despite the slander of those in "the synagogue of Satan."

Rebuke

None given. Smyrna is one of only two of the seven churches to receive no rebuke whatsoever.

Exhortation

"Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer... be thou faithful unto death."

Promise to the Overcomer

"A crown of life," and no hurt from "the second death."

History & Ruins

Smyrna was a prosperous rival to Ephesus, admired in antiquity for its beauty and its loyalty to Rome. Roughly sixty years after this letter, its bishop Polycarp — said to be a disciple of John himself — was burned at the stake rather than renounce Christ, a striking fulfillment of the call to be "faithful unto death."

Unlike most of the seven, Smyrna never declined; it grew into modern İzmir, Turkey's third-largest city. Its Roman-era agora survives as an open-air museum, though the rest of the ancient city lies beneath centuries of continuous habitation.

The only one of the seven still a major metropolis today.

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