The Fifth Trumpet: Locusts from the Abyss
1The 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, 2and it opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke rose out of the shaft like the smoke of a great furnace. The sun and the sky were darkened by the smoke from the shaft. 3Out of the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of 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 strikes someone. 6In those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death will flee from them. 7In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold, and their faces were like human faces. 8Their hair was 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 with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months. 11As king over them they have the angel of the abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek his name is Apollyon. 12The first woe has passed. Look, two more woes are still to come after this.
The Sixth Trumpet: The Army from the Euphrates
13The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a single voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God, 14saying to the sixth angel who held the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15So the four angels who had been kept ready for this hour and day and month and year were released, to kill a third of humanity. 16The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million; I heard their number. 17And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and their riders: they had breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of sulfur. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur. 18A third of humanity was killed by these three plagues, by the fire, 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; for their tails are like serpents, having heads, and with them they inflict harm. 20The rest of humanity, those not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands. They did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. 21Nor did they repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.
