Revelation 9

The Fifth and Sixth Trumpets

1 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. The star was given the key to the bottomless pit.

2 When he opened up the pit, smoke poured out like from a massive furnace. The smoke darkened the sun and the air.

3 Out of the smoke came locusts swarming over the earth, but these were not ordinary locusts. They were given power like scorpions, to sting people.

4 They were told not to mess with any plants, trees, or grass, only the people who did not have God’s seal on their foreheads.

5 They were not allowed to kill these people, just to torment them for five months. And the pain they caused was like getting stung by a scorpion.

6 During those days, people will be dying to die but will not be able to. They will want death, but it will not come.

7 These locusts looked wild, they were geared up like horses ready for battle. They had something like golden crowns on their heads, and their faces looked human.

8 Their hair was long like a woman’s hair, and their teeth were sharp like a lion’s.

9 They wore armor plates that sounded like chariots rushing into battle when they moved.

10 They had tails with stingers like scorpions, and in those tails, they had the power to torment people for five months.

11 Their king was the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, it is Apollyon (the Destroyer).

12 The first woe is over, but brace yourselves, two more are coming.

13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar in front of God.

14 It said to the sixth angel with the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

15 So the four angels who had been prepared for this exact hour, day, month, and year were released to kill a third of humanity.

16 The number of troops in their army was two hundred million, I heard their number.

17 And in my vision, the horses and riders looked like this: the riders had armor that was fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The horses’ heads looked like lions, and fire, smoke, and sulfur came out of their mouths.

18 A third of humanity was wiped out by these three plagues, fire, smoke, and sulfur coming out of the horses’ mouths.

19 The power of these horses was in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails were like snakes with heads, able to hurt people.

20 But the people who survived these plagues did not repent. They kept on with their idol-worship, idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood that cannot see, hear, or walk.

21 And they did not turn away from their murders, witchcraft, sexual immorality, or their thieving ways.