The repetition in verse three of the harlot’ s winecup, representing her multiplied forms of seduction. The reference to the kings of the earth was used in the sense of the rulers and authorities of Judea and Palestine; and the reference to the nations was a designation for the heathen. They were all particeps criminus, having drunk of the harlot’ s seductive wine-cup of abominations. The language was symbolic of Jerusalem’ s heathen affiliations. Thus the proud capital of the Jews, once the dwelling place of God and the depository of the Oracles and the center of Judaism, by apostasy had come to destruction and was reduced to a haunt of the demon-world of heathenism, the habitat of the diabolical agents of the satanic beast.