BWE - Revelation of John - 9

9:1  Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet. I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The key to the big hole that has no bottom was given to the angel.

9:2  He opened the big hole and smoke came out. It was like the smoke of a very big fire. The sun and the air were made dark by the smoke from the big hole.

9:3  Then out of the smoke came locusts on the earth like big grasshoppers. They were given the power to hurt people the way that scorpions do.

9:4  They were told not to spoil any of the grass, nor any green plant, nor any tree on earth. They were told to hurt only the people who did not have God’s mark on their foreheads.

9:5  They were told not to kill them, but to trouble them for five months. The pain they give is like the pain a scorpion gives when it strikes a person.

9:6  In those days people will look for death, but they will not be able to find it. They will want to die, but death will fly away from them.

9:7  The locusts looked like horses ready to go to war. On their heads were gold crowns. And they had faces like people.

9:8  Their hair was like women’s hair and their teeth like lions’ teeth.

9:9  Their bodies were covered by something like pieces of iron. The noise of their wings sounded like many wagons and horses running to war.

9:10  The locusts had tails like scorpions that could strike people and hurt them for five months.

9:11  The king of the locusts is the angel of the big hole that has no bottom. His name is Abaddon in the Jew’s language and Apollyon in the Greek language. (This means, the one who destroys.)

9:12  The first trouble is gone. Two more troubles are coming after it.

9:13  The sixth angel blew his trumpet. I heard a voice from the four horns of the gold altar in front of God.

9:14  The voice said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Untie the four angels who are tied at the big river Euphrates.’

9:15  So the four angels were let free. They were ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year when they would kill a third of the people.

9:16  In their army were many, many thousands of men on horses. I heard the number of them.

9:17  I saw what the horses and the men that sat on them looked like. The bodies of the men were covered by pieces of iron that looked red like fire and blue, and yellow. The heads of the horses were like lions’ heads. Fire, smoke and dust came out of their mouths. The dust was sulphur which choked and killed people when it burned in the fire.

9:18  By these three big troubles a third part of the people were killed. They were killed by the fire, smoke, and choking sulphur dust that came out of the mouths of the horses.

9:19  The power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails. Their tails have heads and are like snakes. They hurt people with them.

9:20  The other people were not killed by these big troubles. But they did not stop worshipping what they had made with their hands. They did not stop worshipping bad spirits and idols made of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood. These idols cannot see or hear or walk.

9:21  And they did not stop their killing, or their witchcraft, or their wrong ways of using sex, or their stealing.