20 “Why does God give light to one who is in misery, and life to those whose soul is bitter, 21 to those who wait for death that does not come, and search for it more than for hidden treasures, 22 who rejoice even to jubilation, and are exultant when they find the grave? 23 Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, and whom God has hedged in? 24 For my sighing comes in place of my food, and my groanings flow forth like water. 25 For the very thing I dreaded has happened to me, and what I feared has come upon me. 26 I have no ease; I have no quietness; I cannot rest; turmoil has come upon me.”

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. 6 In those days people will seek death, but will not be able to find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.