Revelation Chapter 9

The Fifth Trumpet/The First Woe

¹ The fifth angel blew his trumpet. I saw a star that had just fallen* to earth. He received a key to the deep abyss. ² He opened it, and a cloud of smoke came out of it as from a huge furnace, and the sun and air grew dark from it. ³ Locusts swarmed out of the cloud onto the earth with ability like scorpions have. ⁴ They were told not to harm the grass, anything green, any tree—just people that didn’t have God’s seal on their foreheads. ⁵ They weren’t to kill them, but to torment them for five months as with scorpion stings. ⁶ The people would want to die but couldn’t; they’d long for death, but it would elude them.                                                                                            

Rev 9:1-6

            ⁷ The locusts looked like horses outfitted for war. They wore what looked like gold helmets* [chanfrons + crinets?] on their heads. They had faces like people, ⁸ manes like women’s hair, teeth like lions’ teeth, ⁹ and iron chest plates* [peytrals]. Their wings sounded like hordes of horses with chariots charging into battle. ¹⁰ Their tails had stingers like scorpions that they could torment people with for five months. ¹¹ Their king, the angel of the abyss, had the Hebrew name Abaddon—Apollyon* [Destroyer] in Greek.

¹² The first woe is over; two more are coming.                                                       Rev 9:7-12      

The Sixth Trumpet/The Second Woe

            ¹³ The sixth angel blew his trumpet. I heard a voice from the four horns of the gold altar in front of God, ¹⁴ telling the sixth angel to release the four angels on hold at the great River Euphrates. ¹⁵ He released the four angels—readied for an hour, day, month, and year—to massacre a third of all people. ¹⁶ The army of horsemen numbered 200,000,000 (I heard the number). ¹⁷ The horses and their riders in the vision looked like this: the riders wore chest plates the color of fire, hyacinth, and sulfur; the horses had heads like lions with fire, smoke, and sulfur coming out of their mouths. ¹⁸ The fire, smoke, and sulfur killed a third of all people. ¹⁹ The horses’ power was in their mouths and tails; their tails were like snakes with heads that could injure people.

²⁰ People that didn’t die from these plagues refused to stop worshiping demons and turn away from the idols their hands had made out of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood—that can’t see, hear, or walk. ²¹ They didn’t repent of their murders, witchcraft, sexual immorality, or thefts.                                                                                                                                              

Rev 9:13-21