What begins as hatred will, says the angel, heat up to aggressive hostility to the point that the beast and the ten horns will abandon the prostitute. We should note that in the Greek the word translated as “desolate” is the verbal form of the noun “wilderness” (Revelation 17:3). God’s curse after the fall into sin (Genesis 3:17–18) left people not only in a world of physical thorns and thistles but also of metaphorical, relational thorns and thistles (think of Genesis 4:1–26) where the one can no longer stomach the presence of the other.
16 And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire,