“And he [the angel] carried me away in the power of the spirit into a wilderness. And I caught sight of a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored wild beast that was full of blasphemous names and that had seven heads and ten horns.”​—Revelation 17:3.

15. What differences are there between the wild beast of Revelation 13:1 and that of Revelation 17:3?

¹⁵ This wild beast has seven heads and ten horns. Is it, then, the same as the wild beast that John saw earlier, which also has seven heads and ten horns? (Revelation 13:1) No, there are differences. This wild beast is scarlet-colored and, unlike the previous wild beast, is not said to have diadems. Rather than having blasphemous names on its seven heads only, it is “full of blasphemous names.” Nevertheless, there must be a relationship between this new wild beast and the previous one; the similarities between them are too pronounced to be coincidental.

16. What is the identity of the scarlet-colored wild beast, and what has been stated as to its purpose?

¹⁶ What, then, is this new scarlet-colored wild beast? It must be the image to the wild beast that was brought forth under the urging of the Anglo-American wild beast that has two horns like a lamb. After the image was made, that two-horned wild beast was allowed to give breath to the image of the wild beast. (Revelation 13:14, 15) John now sees the living, breathing image. It pictures the League of Nations organization that the two-horned wild beast brought to life in 1920. U.S. President Wilson had envisioned that the League “would be a forum for the dispensation of justice for all men and wipe out the threat of war forever.” When it was resurrected after the second world war as the United Nations, its chartered purpose was “to maintain international peace and security.”