Chapter 9

¹Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen on the earth from the sky. He was given the key to the pit of the abyss, ²and he opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke like the smoke of a great furnace poured up out of the pit, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit. ³Out of the smoke locusts descended upon the earth, but with powers like those of earthly scorpions. ⁴They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only the men who did not have the mark of God’s seal upon their foreheads. ⁵They were not allowed to kill anyone, but only to torture them for five months, and the torture they inflicted was like that caused by a scorpion when it stings a man. ⁶In those days men will seek death and never find it. They will want to die, but death will fly from them. ⁷In appearance the locusts were like war-horses armed for battle; on their heads were what appeared to be crowns like gold; their faces were like human faces; ⁸they had hair like a woman’s; their teeth were like those of lions; ⁹their breasts were like iron breast-plates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of a great number of chariots and horses rushing into battle. ¹⁰They had tails and stings like scorpions; it was in their tails that their power lay to harm men for five months. ¹¹They had over them as king the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but in Greek he is called Apollyon.

¹²The first woe is past. See! Two woes are yet to come.

¹³Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the corners of the altar of gold that was before God ¹⁴say to the sixth angel who had the trumpet,

“Release the four angels that are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

¹⁵Then the four angels who were held in readiness for that hour and day and month and year were let loose to kill one third of mankind. ¹⁶The number of the hosts of horsemen was twice 10,000 times 10,000; I heard their number. ¹⁷And this was how the horses and their riders looked in my vision: Their breast-plates were fire red, dark blue, and yellow. The horses’ heads were like lions’ heads, and fire, smoke, and sulphur poured from their mouths. ¹⁸One third of mankind were killed by these three plagues—the fire, smoke, and sulphur that poured from their mouths. ¹⁹For the power of the horses lay in their mouths and their tails; their tails were like snakes, and they had heads with which they hurt people. ²⁰Yet what was left of mankind, those who escaped being killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands and give up worshiping demons and gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wooden idols, which cannot either see or hear or move, ²¹and they did not repent of their murders, or their magic arts, or their immorality, or their thefts.