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Revelation 9

1The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to the earth. The key to the shaft of the abyss was given to him. 2He opened the shaft of the abyss, and smoke rose from the shaft like smoke from a great furnace. The sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft. 3From the smoke locusts came onto the earth, and they were given power like the power of the earth's scorpions. 4They were told not to harm the earth's grass or any green plant or any tree, but only the people who did not have God's seal on their foreheads. 5They were not permitted to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a person. 6In those days people will seek death and certainly not find it. They will long to die, and death flees from them.

7The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold, and their faces were like human faces. 8They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth. 9They had breastplates like iron breastplates, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses rushing into battle. 10They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months. 11They have as king over them the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon. 12The first woe has passed. Look! Two woes are still coming after these things.

13The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a single voice from the horns of the golden altar before God, 14saying to the sixth angel, who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15The four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of humanity. 16The number of the mounted troops was two myriads of myriads; I heard their number. 17This is how I saw the horses in the vision and those riding them: they had breastplates the color of fire and hyacinth and sulfur. The horses' heads were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. 18A third of humanity was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. 19For the horses' power is in their mouths and in their tails. Their tails are like snakes, with heads, and with them they cause harm.

20The rest of humanity, who were not killed by these plagues, did not even repent of the works of their hands, so as to stop worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. 21They did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Translation notes 4

9:1–6 — Abyss and torment. The abyss is the deep place of confinement from which destructive beings emerge. The KJV calls it the “bottomless pit”; the NET uses “abyss.” The term is distinct from Hades and from the lake of fire. The star is already fallen when John sees it, and the text does not identify it by name. The limits on the locusts' activity are explicit.

9:7–11 — Locust imagery and names. The comparisons are preserved as comparisons, without substituting modern weapons. Abaddon means destruction; Apollyon means destroyer. The Hebrew and Greek names are both retained because the text gives both.

9:13–19 — Voice, number, and colors. The base does not specify four horns in verse 13. Two myriads of myriads amounts to two hundred million. “Hyacinth” denotes a dark blue color here; the other colors evoke fire and sulfur. The passage identifies these as things John saw in a vision.

9:20–21 — Sorceries. The Greek word concerns magical practices or substances used in them. Its connection with words for drugs does not make it a reference to ordinary medicine. The repeated refusal to repent links worship and conduct.