What role do the two witnesses play in the holy city, and what follows the sounding of the seventh trumpet?

John receives a measuring reed resembling a staff and is instructed to rise and measure the sanctuary of God, the altar of sacrifice, and the faithful who worship within its precincts. However, he is directed to exclude the exterior court without measuring it, because it has been abandoned to the Gentiles, who will trample the holy city for forty-two months. During this period, God authorizes His two witnesses to prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, garbed in penitential sackcloth. In his annotation, Bishop Challoner explains that Catholic tradition commonly identifies these two witnesses as Henoch and Elias, . Described as the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing in the presence of the Lord of the earth, they possess formidable supernatural power: if anyone attempts to harm them, devouring fire issues from their mouths to consume their adversaries. Furthermore, they are endowed with miraculous authority to close the heavens against rain throughout their prophetic ministry, to transform waters into blood, and to strike the earth with varied plagues as often as they determine.

Once the witnesses conclude their appointed testimony, the ferocious beast ascending from the abyss wages war against them, conquering and slaying them. Their corpses are left exposed in the streets of the great metropolis mystically designated as Sodom and Egypt, the very city where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days, crowds from every tribe, people, tongue, and nation gaze upon their unburied remains, refusing them customary burial in sepulchres. The worldly inhabitants of the earth celebrate their demise with jubilant festivities and exchange presents, rejoicing that the two prophets who had tormented them are silenced. Yet after three and a half days, the revivifying breath of life from God enters the slain witnesses, and they rise to their feet, striking overwhelming dread into all onlookers. A resonant celestial voice calls to them to come up hither, and they ascend into heaven within a cloud in full view of their enemies. Immediately a massive earthquake demolishes a tenth part of the city, killing seven thousand men, while the terrified survivors render glory to the God of heaven, concluding the second woe as the third woe approaches swiftly.

When the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, jubilant voices resound throughout heaven, proclaiming that the sovereignty of this world has passed to our Lord and His Christ, who will reign for endless ages. The twenty-four elders enthroned before God fall prostrate upon their faces in adoration, rendering profound thanksgiving to the Lord God Almighty—who is, who was, and who is to come—for asserting His sovereign majesty and inaugurating His eternal kingdom. They declare that although the heathen nations raged, the hour of divine wrath has arrived to judge the departed, to bestow everlasting recompense upon the prophets, the saints, and all who revere His name both humble and great, and to execute ruin upon those who corrupted the earth. Finally, the heavenly temple of God is thrown open, unveiling the sacred ark of His testament within the sanctuary amidst blinding flashes of lightning, voices, a severe earthquake, and torrential hail.