2 Chronicles 21

• 1. Then Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. And Jehoram his son succeeded him as king.
• 2. Jehoram's brothers, the sons of Jehoshaphat, were Azariah, Jehiel, Zechariah, Azariahu, Michael and Shephatiah. All these were sons of Jehoshaphat king of Israel.
• 3. Their father had given them many gifts of silver and gold and articles of value, as well as fortified cities in Judah, but he had given the kingdom to Jehoram because he was his firstborn son.
• 4. When Jehoram established himself firmly over his father's kingdom, he put all his brothers to the sword along with some of the princes of Israel.
• 5. Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years.
• 6. He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD.
• 7. Nevertheless, because of the covenant the LORD had made with David, the LORD was not willing to destroy the house of David. He had promised to maintain a lamp for him and his descendants forever.
• 8. In the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king.
• 9. So Jehoram went there with his officers and all his chariots. The Edomites surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but he rose up and broke through by night.
• 10. To this day Edom has been in rebellion against Judah. Libnah revolted at the same time, because Jehoram had forsaken the LORD, the God of his fathers.
• 11. He had also built high places on the hills of Judah and had caused the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves and had led Judah astray.
• 12. Jehoram received a letter from Elijah the prophet, which said: "This is what the LORD, the God of your father David, says: 'You have not walked in the ways of your father Jehoshaphat or of Asa king of Judah.
• 13. But you have walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and you have led Judah and the people of Jerusalem to prostitute themselves, just as the house of Ahab did. You have also murdered your own brothers, members of your father's house, men who were better than you.
• 14. So now the LORD is about to strike your people, your sons, your wives and everything that is yours, with a heavy blow.
• 15. You yourself will be very ill with a lingering disease of the bowels, until the disease causes your bowels to come out.'"
• 16. The LORD aroused against Jehoram the hostility of the Philistines and of the Arabs who lived near the Cushites.
• 17. They attacked Judah, invaded it and carried off all the goods found in the king's palace, together with his sons and wives. Not a son was left to him except Ahaziah, the youngest.
• 18. After all this, the LORD afflicted Jehoram with an incurable disease of the bowels.
• 19. In the course of time, at the end of the second year, his bowels came out because of the disease, and he died in great pain. His people made no fire in his honor, as they had for his fathers.
• 20. Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away, to no one's regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings.

Revelation 9

• 1. The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss.
• 2. When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss.
• 3. And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth.
• 4. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
• 5. They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
• 6. During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.
• 7. The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces.
• 8. Their hair was like women's hair, and their teeth were like lions' teeth.
• 9. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.
• 10. They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.
• 11. They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.
• 12. The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.
• 13. The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God.
• 14. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates."
• 15. And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
• 16. The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.
• 17. The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur.
• 18. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths.
• 19. The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.
• 20. The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
• 21. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Zechariah 5

• 1. I looked again-and there before me was a flying scroll!
• 2. He asked me, "What do you see?" I answered, "I see a flying scroll, thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide. "
• 3. And he said to me, "This is the curse that is going out over the whole land; for according to what it says on one side, every thief will be banished, and according to what it says on the other, everyone who swears falsely will be banished.
• 4. The LORD Almighty declares, 'I will send it out, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in his house and destroy it, both its timbers and its stones.'"
• 5. Then the angel who was speaking to me came forward and said to me, "Look up and see what this is that is appearing."
• 6. I asked, "What is it?" He replied, "It is a measuring basket. "And he added, "This is the iniquity of the people throughout the land."
• 7. Then the cover of lead was raised, and there in the basket sat a woman!
• 8. He said, "This is wickedness," and he pushed her back into the basket and pushed the lead cover down over its mouth.
• 9. Then I looked up-and there before me were two women, with the wind in their wings! They had wings like those of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between heaven and earth.
• 10. "Where are they taking the basket?" I asked the angel who was speaking to me.
• 11. He replied, "To the country of Babylonia to build a house for it. When it is ready, the basket will be set there in its place."

New International Version

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