4 For it was necessary that upon those oppressors inescapable want should come, while to these others it was merely shown how their enemies were being tormented. 5 For when the terrible rage of wild animals came upon your people and they were being destroyed by the bites of writhing serpents, your wrath did not continue to the end; 6 they were troubled for a little while as a warning, and received a symbol of deliverance to remind them of your law's command. 7 For the one who turned toward it was saved, not by the thing that was beheld, but by you, the Savior of all. 8 And by this also you convinced our enemies that it is you who deliver from every evil. 9 For they were killed by the bites of locusts and flies, and no healing was found for them, because they deserved to be punished by such things.

1 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the abyss. 2 He opened the shaft of the abyss and smoke rose out of it like smoke from a giant furnace. The sun and the air were darkened with smoke from the shaft. 3 Then out of the smoke came locusts onto the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to damage the grass of the earth, or any green plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their forehead. 5 The locusts were not given permission to kill them, but only to torture them for five months, and their torture was like that of a scorpion when it stings a person.