Revelation 17:6: And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

The woman in Revelation 17:6 is the Great Whore (Modern Babylon) of the latter days.¹ She is drunken with the blood of the saints² because the citizens of Modern Babylon have and will murder saints in the latter days and make them martyrs of Jesus.³ This imagery comes from an ancient custom where men drank the blood of their enemies to excite their passion for bloodlust.⁴ Since the Great Whore sits upon many waters,⁵ this verse predicts the death and martyrdom of saints throughout the world in the latter days.⁶

The martyred saints from Christ's ancient church⁷ foreshadow the deaths of these latter-day martyrs.⁸ Saints in the ancient church were initially persecuted⁹ and martyred by their fellow Jews after Christ's death.¹⁰ Thereafter, the Romans began to murder Christians as a matter of state policy during the reign of emperor Nero,¹¹ who ruled from 54 to 68 AD.¹² By Nero's decree,¹³ the temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in 70 AD¹⁴ and the Jews were massacred.¹⁵ Nero's bloodlust policies continued¹⁶ off and on in the Roman Empire until emperor Constantine made an apostate form of Christianity the state religion early in the fourth century AD.¹⁷ Revelation 17:3 identifies a woman of false religion seated on a blood-red scarlet beast that symbolizes the ancient scene of bloodshed and martyrdom of saints in the Roman Empire from Nero to Constantine.¹⁸

After Constantine made apostate and paganized Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire, the martyrdom of Christians stopped,¹⁹ but the woman's lust for blood did not. She murdered many so-called heretics during the Dark Ages and the Reformation²⁰ because their faith did not conform to Rome's pagan version of Christianity.²¹ These heretics were not martyred as saints within the latter-day meaning of Revelation 17:6. In verse 6, saints are baptized members of Christ's true church²² that live gospel law.²³ There were no members of Christ's church on earth²⁴ during the Dark Ages or the Reformation because the true church did not exist in this time of the Great Apostasy.²⁵ Nevertheless, the people in that time who died for their faith in Jesus Christ were saints²⁶ according to the light they possessed²⁷ and they shall in no wise lose their reward.²⁸

After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was restored in 1830,²⁹ saints within the meaning of Revelation 17:6 were again on earth³⁰ and subject to the martyrdom that John foresaw.³¹ The Great Whore has already spilled the blood of many Latter-day Saints since 1830.³² However, these murders are merely a prelude to the murders of saints that still lie in the future.³³ These future latter-day murders are the reason John wondered with great admiration³⁴ or consternation³⁵ when he saw the Great Whore.³⁶ She will become drunk on the blood of modern saints primarily during the Great Tribulation,³⁷ which is the last 3½ years before the Second Coming.³⁸