Translation
All the inhabitants of the earth will worship THE BEAST—all those whose names have not been written in the book of life
Go to footnote numberbelonging to THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN
from the founding of the world.
Go to footnote numberParaphrase
All the inhabitants of the earth will worship THE FEROCIOUS CREATURE, that is all those whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to THE ONLY EFFICACIOUS SACRIFICE THAT WAS SLAIN, as determined before the creation of the world.
Footnotes
1: Persecution
Only the true followers of Jesus, those willing to stand against the flow and to suffer for “The Name,” will keep from being deceived. There will be no middle ground, no quasi-Christians. One emphasis in Revelation is that persecution makes the difference between the just and the unjust so clear that when God judges there can be no doubt that He judges rightly. It does not matter if this judgment comes to individual lives down through history, or to everyone at the end of time, God’s judgments are right and He will be proven right by a clear demarcation between His followers and His enemies.
2: “From the creation of the world”
From the very beginning God knew man would sin. But instead of making us robots without a will, robots that would obey him with no choice of doing otherwise, He took the risk and gave us free will, knowing we would abuse it. Before He even created us He had also planned the antidote for sin, even though it would come at a very high price.