¹The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the tunnel leading down into the Abyss, which is a bottomless pit.

²The star opened the Abyss, and smoke rose up from it like the smoke from a huge furnace. It made the sun and sky go dark.

³Locusts came out of the smoke down onto the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions that live on the earth.

⁴They were told not to harm the grass or any plant or tree, but only the people who didn’t have God’s official seal on their foreheads.

⁵They weren’t allowed to kill those people, but they could hurt them over and over again for five months. Those people suffered pain like the sting of a scorpion when it strikes.

⁶In those days, people will look for a way to die, but they won’t find it. They will long to die, but they won’t be able to.

⁷The locusts looked like horses ready for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold. Their faces looked like human faces,

⁸their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth.

⁹Their chests were covered with something that looked like armor made out of iron. The sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.

¹⁰They had tails that could sting people the way scorpions’ tails do. That gave them the power to hurt people over and over again for five months.

¹¹The angel of the Abyss was their king. In Hebrew his name is Abaddon, and in Greek it’s Apollyon, which means Destroyer.

¹²The first terrible judgment is past, but two others are still coming.

¹³The sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the four corners of the golden altar that stands in front of God.

¹⁴The voice said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are being held near the great river Euphrates.”

¹⁵Those four angels were being kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year. They were released to kill a third of all people.

¹⁶There was an army of troops on horseback, and I heard someone say that it had 200,000,000 soldiers.

¹⁷The horses and riders I saw in my vision had armor on their chests that was red like fire, dark blue, and yellow like sulfur. The heads of the horses looked like lions’ heads. Out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur.

¹⁸A third of all people were killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that came out of the horses’ mouths.

¹⁹The horses had power both in their mouths and in their tails, because their tails were like snakes with heads inflicting injuries.

²⁰The people who weren’t killed by these plagues still didn’t stop what they’d been doing. They didn’t stop worshiping demons and idols made out of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood. Those idols can’t see or hear or walk.

²¹The people also didn’t stop their murders, witchcraft, sexual sins, and stealing.