² But exclude the courtyard outside the temple.^(A) Don’t measure it, because it is given to the nations,^[a](B) and they will trample the holy city^(C) for forty-two months.^(D)

The Fifth Trumpet

9 The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth.^(A) The key for the shaft to the abyss^(B) was given to him. ² He opened the shaft to the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great^[a] furnace^(C) so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.^{(D) 3} Then locusts came out of the smoke on to the earth,^(E) and power^[b] was given to them^(F) like the power that scorpions have on the earth.^{(G) 4} They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green plant, or any tree,^(H) but only those people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads.^{(I) 5} They were not permitted to kill them but were to torment them for five months; their torment is like the torment caused by a scorpion when it stings someone. ⁶ In those days people will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.^(J)