Revelation Chapter 9 — The Fifth and Sixth Trumpets

¹The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from the sky which had fallen to the earth. The key to the pit of the abyss was given to him.

²He opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke from a*TR adds “great” burning furnace. The sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke from the pit.

³Then out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and power was given to them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

⁴They were told that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those people who don’t have God’s seal on their foreheads.

⁵They were given power, not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a person.

⁶In those days people will seek death, and will in no way find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them.

⁷The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people’s faces.

⁸They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions.

⁹They had breastplates like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots and horses rushing to war.

¹⁰They have tails like those of scorpions, with stingers. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months.

¹¹They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”,†“Abaddon” is a Hebrew word that means “ruin”, “destruction”, or “the place of destruction” but in Greek, he has the name “Apollyon”.‡“Apollyon” means “Destroyer”.

¹²The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.

¹³The sixth angel sounded. I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God,

¹⁴saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Free the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates!”

¹⁵The four angels were freed who had been prepared for that hour and day and month and year, so that they might kill one third of mankind.

¹⁶The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million.§literally, “ten thousands of ten thousands” I heard the number of them.

¹⁷Thus I saw the horses in the vision and those who sat on them, having breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the horses’ heads resembled lions’ heads. Out of their mouths proceed fire, smoke, and sulfur.

¹⁸By these three plagues, one third of mankind was killed: by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur, which proceeded out of their mouths.

¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails are like serpents, and have heads; and with them they harm.

²⁰The rest of mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, didn’t repent of the works of their hands, that they wouldn’t worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood, which can’t see, hear, or walk.

²¹They didn’t repent of their murders, their sorceries,*The word for “sorceries” (pharmakeia) also implies the use of potions, poisons, and drugs their sexual immorality, or their thefts.