Revelation 9

¹And the fifth angel sounded his trumpet. 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 smoke from 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 authority was given to them like the authority that scorpions of the earth possess. ⁴They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, nor any green plant, nor any tree—only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. ⁵And it was granted to them not to kill them, but that they would be tormented for five months. Their torment is like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a person. ⁶In those days people will seek death and will never find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.

⁷The forms of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold, and their faces were like human faces. ⁸They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like those of lions. ⁹They had breastplates like iron breastplates, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of many horse-drawn chariots charging into battle. ¹⁰They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails lies their authority to harm people for five months. ¹¹They have ruling over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he bears the name Apollyon.

¹²The first woe has passed. Look—two woes are still coming after these things.

¹³And the sixth angel sounded his trumpet. I heard a single voice from the four horns of the golden altar that stands before God, ¹⁴saying to the sixth angel who held the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates." ¹⁵And the four angels were released—those who had been prepared for this very hour and day and month and year—to kill a third of humanity. ¹⁶The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million; I heard their number.

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

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