Revelation 9

1The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to the earth. He was given the key to the shaft of the abyss.

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.

3Then out of the smoke came locusts onto the earth, and they were given power like the power of the scorpions of the earth.

4They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only the people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

5They were not allowed to kill them, but only to torment them for five months, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.

6In those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death flees from them.

7The locusts looked 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 women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.

9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the roar of many horse-drawn chariots rushing into battle.

10They have tails and stingers like scorpions, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months.

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. Look, two more woes are still coming after this.

13The sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice 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 are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

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

16The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million; I heard their number.

17This is how I saw the horses and their riders in the vision: they had breastplates that were fiery red, dark blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.

18By these three plagues a third of humankind was killed, by the fire and the smoke and the sulfur that came out of their mouths.

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

20The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, still did not repent of the works of their hands. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

21Nor did they repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.