Revelation 17:15
And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
In this chapter the woman is a symbol of a church, and the vile woman represents an apostate church. Babylon means confusion and is used for forms of false or apostate religion. The waters where the whore sits are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues or languages.
The waters symbolize the great changing tides of national life and the peoples among whom powers arise. The turbulent sea represents the crowded, struggling and divided peoples and nations of the Old World, and the winds striving over it represent the strife and the conquest and revolutions through which kingdoms rise to power. The sea from which the beast of Revelation 13 arose has the same meaning as the waters here, showing that the papacy was upheld by many nations.
The verse belongs to the prophecies of Revelation 12 to 18 that are being fulfilled at the time when the last message of warning is to be heard by all. The chapter shows the perils before God's people in the last days, revealing a deceived people working counter to God.