Smyrnaa crown of life
To Smyrna, poor and persecuted: be faithful unto death.
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The whole story
To Smyrna the risen Christ speaks as the first and the last, which was dead and is alive. He knows its works, its tribulation and its poverty, “but thou art rich” (Revelation 2:9), and the slander of those who opposed it. Some of them would be cast into prison, and have tribulation ten days.
Smyrna is one of only two of the seven churches that receive no rebuke. The letter promises that he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. Some sixty years later Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna, was put to death in its stadium, saying he had served Christ eighty-six years and could not deny the King who saved him.
Smyrna, now Izmir, was a proud and beautiful city that had been destroyed and built again, and its people liked to call it the crown of Ionia; the letter promises the faithful a crown of life. Its Roman marketplace has been excavated in the middle of the modern city.
Fear 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.
Revelation 2:10, KJV
Where it happened
Smyrna, Izmir, Turkey.
Izmir, on the Aegean coast.
Every story stands at its place on the Worldwide Watch map: the Bible’s world, on the map.
More from Revelation
Revelation
Sources and editorial method
Research and editorial references used for this page include:
- The King James Bible, as published by bible-api.com
- The Book of Enoch, translated by R. H. Charles (1917), Project Gutenberg
Every story is told from the King James Bible, and from the Book of Enoch in R. H. Charles’s translation (1917) where a story names it. Every quotation was checked word for word against those texts. Where a place is not known, the page says so. The paintings and the narration were made for the house.
