A Third of Humanity Killed by Plagues

¹³ And the sixth angel blew the trumpet, and I heard one voice from the horns^[a] of the golden altar that is before God ¹⁴ saying to the sixth angel, the one who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who have been bound at the great river Euphrates!” ¹⁵ And the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year were released, in order that they should kill a third of humanity. ¹⁶ And the number of the troops of the cavalry was two hundred million^[b]; I heard the number of them. ¹⁷ And in this way I saw the horses in the vision, and those seated on them, who had fiery red and hyacinth-colored and sulphurous yellow breastplates, and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire and smoke and sulphur. ¹⁸ By these three plagues a third of humanity was killed—by the fire and the smoke and the sulphur that came out of their mouths. ¹⁹ For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are similar in appearance to snakes, having heads, and with them they cause injury.^[c]

²⁰ And the rest of humanity who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, in order not to worship^[d] the demons and the gold and silver and bronze and stone and wooden idols, which are able neither to see nor to hear nor to walk, ²¹ and they did not repent of their murders or of their magic spells or of their sexual immorality or of their thefts.