Revelation 9

¹Then the fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to the earth, and the key to the shaft of the Abyss was given to him. ²He opened the shaft of the Abyss, and smoke rose from the shaft like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.

³Out of the smoke, locusts came onto the earth, and they were given a license for power like the power that scorpions of the earth possess. ⁴They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, nor any green growth, nor any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. ⁵They were not permitted to kill them, but rather to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a person. ⁶In those days, people will seek death and will by no means find it; they will long to die, but death flees from them.

⁷In appearance, the locusts were like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold, and their faces were like human faces. ⁸They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. ⁹They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of many horse-drawn chariots charging into battle. ¹⁰They have tails like scorpions, complete with stingers; their power to harm people for five months is in their tails. ¹¹They have as king over them the angel of the Abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon. ¹²The first woe has passed; behold, two more woes are coming after these things.

¹³Then the sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four horns of the golden altar that is before God, ¹⁴saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who have been bound at the great river Euphrates.” ¹⁵So the four angels—who had been prepared for this very hour and day and month and year—were released to kill a third of humanity. ¹⁶The number of the cavalry troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number.

¹⁷And this is how I saw the horses in the vision and those sitting on them: they had breastplates the color of fire, hyacinth, and sulfur. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths issued fire, smoke, and sulfur. ¹⁸By these three plagues a third of humanity was killed—by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur issuing from their mouths. ¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like snakes, having heads, and with them they inflict harm.

²⁰The rest of humanity, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands so as to stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—which can neither see nor hear nor walk. ²¹Nor did they repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.