This Beast will reign for 42 months (13:5), for 1.260 days (12:6), for the 42 months that the Two Prophets gave witness (11:2), for the 3.5 years that the Great Tribulation will last (Mat.24:21-30): "5: And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months; 6: it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his sanctuary, that is, those who dwell in heaven."… and, though he was adored as a god, he spoke boastful and blasphemous words against the real God and his sanctuary.
The Second Beast, (the False Prophet of 16:13): Rev.13:11-18:
1- The Second Beast is called the False Prophet in Rev.16:13: "13:11: Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon."
- He is also a human person, a religious one. He is most deceiving: He looks as good as the real Jesus Christ, like the Lamb of God, but he speaks and acts like Satan.
- He rises from the "earth", which in the Bible stands for "the good ordained religion"… he actually will come from the real Church of Christ!, as St. John proclaims: "Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us" (1Jn.2:18-19).
This statement of St. John applies also for the First Beast, the Antichrist: Some scholars think he will be a Jew, but this statement of St. John clearly indicates that he will be a Christian from the real Church of Christ.