** The Fifth and Sixth Trumpets Sound **

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 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 they 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 hear or walk.
Nor did they repent of their murders,
their magic arts,
their sexual immorality or their thefts.

(Revelation 9)