Revelation 6:11
Revelation 6:1111Then each of them was given a white robe and told to rest a little while longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers, were killed, just as they had been killed.
Watchtower commentary continues the symbolic reading from v10. The white robes given to the souls represent the symbolic vindication of the martyrs' cause; the instruction to "rest a little while longer" is figurative language about the delay of judgment, not about conscious souls actively waiting. The passage is read as a poetic depiction of unavenged blood, fully consistent with soul-sleep doctrine.
Three actions converge in v10-11 that no figure of unavenged blood can sustain: the souls speak (specific words), they receive (white robes), and they are told (to rest). Each act presupposes a conscious recipient. John could have written "their blood lay under the altar" — instead he writes that souls were given robes and told to wait. The depiction is intentional. Combine with (the rich man conscious in Hades), ("today you will be with me in paradise"), ("absent from the body, at home with the Lord"), and ("to depart and be with Christ"). The biblical pattern is consistent: the dead in Christ are conscious, with Christ, awaiting the resurrection.
The NWT renders syndoulōn as "fellow slaves" rather than "fellow servants" (consensus ESV/NASB/NIV; KJV "fellowservants"). Lexically defensible — doulos covers slave/servant — but the NWT's consistent preference for "slave" over "servant" lowers the dignity of the relational term Paul and John use of themselves and other Christians. The translation choice is systematic and theological rather than incidental.