Revelation
9
- The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and
I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given
the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
- When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from
it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by
the smoke from the Abyss.
- And out of the smoke locusts came down upon
the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
- They were told not to harm the grass of
the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the
seal of God on their foreheads.
- They were not given power to kill them,
but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was
like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
- During those days men will seek death, but
will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
- The locusts looked like horses prepared
for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their
faces resembled human faces.
- Their hair was like women's hair, and their
teeth were like lions' teeth.
- They had breastplates like breastplates
of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses
and chariots rushing into battle.
- They had tails and stings like scorpions,
and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
- They had as king over them the angel of
the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.
- The first woe is past; two other woes are
yet to come.
- The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and
I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God.
- It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet,
"Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates."
- And the four angels who had been kept ready
for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third
of mankind.
- The number of the mounted troops was two
hundred million. I heard their number.
- The horses and riders I saw in my vision
looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow
as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of
their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.
- A third of mankind was killed by the three
plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.
- The power of the horses was in their mouths
and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which
they inflict injury.
- The rest of mankind that were not killed
by these plagues still did not repent of the work 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.
- Nor did they repent of their murders, their
magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.
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