Fifth Trumpet Opens the Abyss of Punishment
1When the fifth angel blew his trumpet, I saw an angel drop out of the sky and onto the earth. [1] He had been given the key to the shaft that descended into the abyss [2] of punishment. 2He unlocked the shaft seal. Smoke belched up out of the deep hole, like the smoke of a massive furnace. Billows were so dense and dark that they saturated the air and blackened out the sun.3Locusts [3] swarmed up out of the smoke. They had the scorpion’s power to terrorize, and they used it all over the world. [4] 4Locusts got their orders not to hurt earth’s plant life—not the grass or the trees. [5] Instead, the locusts had permission to target humans. Not just any humans, but only those without God’s seal on their foreheads. [6] 5Locusts weren’t allowed to kill people. But they had permission to make life miserable for them. For five months [7] they could torture people like stinging scorpions would do.
6Times will get so tough that the people will want to kill themselves. But they won’t be able to do it. [8]
7These locusts looked like horses in battle gear. But they had human faces. And they wore gold crowns [9] on their heads. 8They had hair like a woman [10] and teeth like a lion. [11] 9They wore iron armor chest plates. And their wings roared like a battalion of war chariots charging into battle. 10They had tails like scorpions, armed with stingers. [12] Those stingers are what terrorized the people for five months. 11The king of the locusts is an angel deep in the abyss of punishment. In the Hebrew language his name is Abaddon, meaning Destroyer. [13] But in Greek, the international language, his name is Apollyon. [14] 12The first terror is over. Two more to come.
Sixth Trumpet Calls Invaders from the East
13When the sixth angel blew his trumpet, I heard a voice. It came from the four horns on the gold altar in front of God.14The voice gave these instructions to the sixth angel who just blew the trumpet, “Free the four angels held captive at the Great River Euphrates.” [15] 15These were killer angels who had been waiting for this very hour of this day in this month of this year. Their mission was to kill a third of the people in the world. [16] 16I heard someone say how many mounted soldiers were in their army: uncountable times double uncountable. [17]
17In my vision, I saw the soldiers mounted on their horses. The soldiers had armored themselves in colorful breastplates—blazing red, dark blue of a hyacinth, and sulfur yellow. Their horses had lions’ heads. Fire, smoke, and blazing sulfur shot out of their mouths. 18These three elements—fire, smoke, and sulfur [18]—poured out of the mouths of the horses. The disasters this caused killed a third of humanity. [19]
19The horses are dangerous at both ends. They can hurt people with the fire, smoke, and sulfur shooting out of their mouths. And they can hurt them with their tails, which can strike like the head of a snake. [20] 20Humans who survived these disasters didn’t learn anything from it. They didn’t change their destructive way of living. They kept on worshiping demons. And they worshiped lifeless idols made from gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood. There’s nothing to those idols. They can’t speak a word, hear a sound, or get up and take a walk. 21These people showed no remorse for what they stole, for murders they committed, for their sex sins, or for practicing sorcery and witchcraft.
