---
title: Revelation 18:4
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-18-4/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-18-4.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Revelation 18:4
testament: NT
section: Prophecy
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Revelation 18:4

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Then I heard another voice from heaven say:  “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues"

## JW Usage

Revelation 18:4 is the Watchtower's evangelistic charter. "Get out of her, my people" is read as the call to leave Christendom — "Babylon the Great" — and join Jehovah's organisation as the true church of the last days. The verse drives door-to-door recruitment and is one of the most-cited evangelism texts in Watchtower literature.

## Protestant Usage

The call to "come out" echoes Jeremiah 51:45 — "come out of her, my people" — which originally meant fleeing the literal city of Babylon before its destruction. It also echoes Isaiah 48:20 and Jeremiah 50:8. In every Old Testament use, God's people are leaving a city and political-economic system, not a religion. Revelation 18 keeps the imagery: chapter 18 mourns merchants, sea captains, and lost trade — commercial categories, not ecclesiastical ones. The call is to separate from a corrupt imperial-economic system, not to migrate from one religion to another. The Watchtower's reading converts a political-economic exodus into a denominational one.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders the imperative with a colloquial "Get out of her" rather than the consensus "Come out of her" (ESV/NASB/NIV/ KJV). Mild stylistic divergence. More notable: the conditional "if you do not want to share" softens the Greek hina mē ("so that you may not"), which consensus translates as "lest you take part in her sins." The Greek is a purpose clause, not a conditional preference.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Babylon the Great Is a City, Not a Religion](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/babylon-the-great-city.md) — Revelation 17:18 / Revelation 17:9 / Revelation 18:11-13 [Eschatology]