Revelation 18 · a question people ask
"Come out of her, my people" (18:4). Who is told to come out, and out of what?
Here is what the chapter says. John hears "another voice from heaven" (18:4), and its first words are "Come out of her, my people" (18:4). The verse goes on with two clauses that each begin with that: "that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues" (18:4). The next verse gives a reason, beginning with for: "for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities" (18:5). The chapter's name for her is "Babylon, the great city" (18:21). Beyond these words, the chapter doesn't say who "my people" (18:4) are, or what coming out is, and these notes don't either. They apply the call to no church, city, nation, economy or movement, then or now.
The verses
“I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues, for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities.”
“A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down, and will be found no more at all.”