The Beast's Mark

John saw another scary thing. A big beast came up out of the ocean! It had seven heads and ten horns and looked really fierce. The dragon gave this beast power to be in charge for a while.

Everyone was amazed by the beast. Many people started worshiping it, saying, 'Who can beat this beast?' But they were worshiping the wrong thing! They should only worship God!

Then another beast came up from the ground. This one looked like a lamb but talked like a dragon—it was pretending to be good but was really bad. This second beast did magic tricks and amazing things to fool people. It made a statue of the first beast, and the statue could even talk!

The second beast told everyone, 'You HAVE to worship the first beast! If you don't, you'll get in big trouble!' It made people get a special mark on their hand or forehead—like an invisible tattoo. The mark was the number 666.

If you had the mark, you could buy food and things at the store. But if you didn't have the mark, you couldn't buy anything! The beast was trying to force everyone to worship it.

But some brave people said, 'NO! We will ONLY worship God and Jesus! We won't take the mark, even if it's hard.' These were God's people, and they stayed faithful even when bad things happened to them.

God saw how brave they were. He knew who loved Him and who didn't. The beasts seemed powerful, but they weren't more powerful than God! God's people trusted that Jesus would take care of them in the end.

This story teaches us to worship only God, no matter what!