Revelation 9

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to the earth. The key to the shaft of the abyss was given to him. He opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke rose from the shaft like smoke from a great furnace. The sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft. Out of the smoke came locusts onto the earth, and they were given power like the power of the earth's scorpions. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or anything green or any tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not permitted to kill them, but only to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a person. In those days people will seek death and will never find it. They will long to die, but death flees from them. The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads was something like crowns resembling gold, and their faces were like human faces. They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. They had breastplates like iron breastplates, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses rushing into battle. They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months. They have as king over them the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon. The first woe has passed. Look, two more woes are coming after these things. The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a single voice from the horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of humanity. The number of the cavalry troops was two hundred million; I heard their number. This is how I saw the horses in the vision and those riding them: they had breastplates of fiery red, dark blue, and sulfur yellow. The horses' heads were like lions' heads, and from their mouths come fire, smoke, and sulfur. A third of humanity was killed by these three plagues: by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur coming from their mouths. For the horses' power is in their mouths and in their tails. Their tails are like snakes, with heads, and with them they inflict harm. The rest of humanity, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands and stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. Nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Rights and attribution