And the ten horns that you saw, and the wild beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her devastated and naked, and will eat up her fleshy parts and will completely burn her with fire.

26, 27. (a) What change in attitude on the part of the political rulers will evidently lead up to this violent action? (b) Why is their ‘burning her with fire’ appropriate?

²⁶ The symbolic “ten horns’ (the member nations of the world organization for peace and security) will lose their passionate attraction to the harlotrous world empire of false religion and will gore her to death. In fact, the whole symbolic wild beast (now the United Nations) will cease to find satisfaction in their lustful relationship with the “great harlot,” Babylon the Great, and the mouths of the “seven heads” of the scarlet-colored “wild beast” will “eat up her fleshy parts.” To the whole “wild beast” organization, “ten horns” and all, she will become as a worn-out old harlot, no longer desirable for greedy, selfish use. Realistically, under stress of the global crisis, the political rulers, whose nations are members in the United Nations, will become hardheaded in the light of the worsening world conditions. Ignoring all sentimentality, they will be forced to take drastic, heartless action for the preservation of their political institutions and social, economic structure. They will see that the world empire of false religion is an international nuisance and a hindrance to their emergency operations because of the Babylonish religious beliefs, practices and customs.

²⁷ The many gods and goddesses that Babylon the Great has worshiped will not come to the aid of the world empire of false religion, to save her from action by her former lustful paramours. Her former lovers, the political and military elements, will realize that those deities of Babylon the Great are helpless and have been of no saving powers to them when prayed to by the priests, chaplains, clergymen and religious potentates of the world empire of false religion. Those political and military elements will feel deceived, tricked, fooled and will lose respect for worldly religion. They will not have to turn Communist in order to “hate the harlot,” but will simply turn radical and thus be able to cooperate with “godless Communism” in doing away with the hypocritical religious organization. They will give her the treatment that was meted out to some harlots in ancient times, “completely burn her with fire.”​—Genesis 38:24.