Chronological NT Plan

¹Then I saw the Lamb open one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!”

²I looked, and there was a white horse. Its rider held a bow; a crown was given to him, and he went out as a conqueror in order to conquer.

³When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!”

⁴Then another horse went out, a fiery red one, and its rider was allowed to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. And a large sword was given to him.

⁵When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I looked, and there was a black horse. Its rider held a set of scales in his hand.

⁶Then I heard something like a voice among the four living creatures say, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, but do not harm the oil and the wine.”

⁷When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!”

⁸And I looked, and there was a pale green horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following after him. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by the sword, by famine, by plague, and by the wild animals of the earth.

⁹When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the word of God and the testimony they had given.

¹⁰They cried out with a loud voice: “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood? ”

¹¹So they were each given a white robe, and they were told to rest a little while longer until the number would be completed of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters, who were going to be killed just as they had been.

¹²Then I saw him open the sixth seal. A violent earthquake occurred; the sun turned black like sackcloth made of hair; the entire moon became like blood;

¹³the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its unripe figs when shaken by a high wind;

¹⁴the sky was split apart like a scroll being rolled up; and every mountain and island was moved from its place.

¹⁵Then the kings of the earth, the nobles, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and every slave and free person hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

¹⁶And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb,

¹⁷because the great day of their wrath has come! And who is able to stand?”

¹After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.

²Then I saw another angel rising up from the east, who had the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were allowed to harm the earth and the sea:

³“Don’t harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we seal the servants of our God on their foreheads.”

⁴And I heard the number of the sealed: 144,000 sealed from every tribe of the Israelites:

⁵12,000 sealed from the tribe of Judah, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad,

⁶12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh,

⁷12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar,

⁸12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 sealed from the tribe of Benjamin.

⁹After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands.

¹⁰And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!

¹¹All the angels stood around the throne, and along with the elders and the four living creatures they fell facedown before the throne and worshiped God,

¹²saying, Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength be to our God forever and ever. Amen.

¹³Then one of the elders asked me, “Who are these people in white robes, and where did they come from?”

¹⁴I said to him, “Sir, you know.” Then he told me: These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

¹⁵For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple. The one seated on the throne will shelter them:

¹⁶They will no longer hunger; they will no longer thirst; the sun will no longer strike them, nor will any scorching heat.

¹⁷For the Lamb who is at the center of the throne will shepherd them; he will guide them to springs of the waters of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

¹When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

²Then I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God; seven trumpets were given to them.

³Another angel, with a golden incense burner, came and stood at the altar. He was given a large amount of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar in front of the throne.

⁴The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up in the presence of God from the angel’s hand.

⁵The angel took the incense burner, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

⁶And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them.

⁷The first angel blew his trumpet, and hail and fire, mixed with blood, were hurled to the earth. So a third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

⁸The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain ablaze with fire was hurled into the sea. So a third of the sea became blood,

⁹a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

¹⁰The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from heaven. It fell on a third of the rivers and springs of water.

¹¹The name of the star is Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood. So, many of the people died from the waters, because they had been made bitter.

¹²The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened. A third of the day was without light and also a third of the night.

¹³I looked and heard an eagle flying high overhead, crying out in a loud voice, “Woe! Woe! Woe to those who live on the earth, because of the remaining trumpet blasts that the three angels are about to sound!”

¹The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. The key for the shaft to the abyss was given to him.

²He opened the shaft to the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great furnace so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.

³Then locusts came out of the smoke on to the earth, and power was given to them like the power that scorpions have on the earth.

⁴They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green plant, or any tree, but only those people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads.

⁵They 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.

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

⁷The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. Something like golden crowns was on their heads; their faces were like human faces;

⁸they had hair like women’s hair; their teeth were like lions’ teeth;

⁹they had chests like iron breastplates; the sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots with horses rushing into battle;

¹⁰and they had tails with stingers like scorpions, so that with their tails they had the power to harm people for five months.

¹¹They had as their king the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon.

¹²The first woe has passed. There are still two more woes to come after this.

¹³The sixth angel blew his trumpet. From the four horns of the golden altar that is before God, I heard a voice

¹⁴say to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates.”

¹⁵So the four angels who were prepared for the hour, day, month, and year were released to kill a third of the human race.

¹⁶The number of mounted troops was two hundred million; I heard their number.

¹⁷This is how I saw the horses and their riders in the vision: They had breastplates that were fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur.

¹⁸A third of the human race was killed by these three plagues — by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur that came from their mouths.

¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, because their tails, which resemble snakes, have heads that inflict injury.

²⁰The rest of the people, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands to stop worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk.

²¹And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

¹Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head. His face was like the sun, his legs were like pillars of fire,

²and he held a little scroll opened in his hand. He put his right foot on the sea, his left on the land,

³and he called out with a loud voice like a roaring lion. When he cried out, the seven thunders raised their voices.

⁴And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders said, and do not write it down!”

⁵Then the angel that I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven.

⁶He swore by the one who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it: “There will no longer be a delay,

⁷but in the days when the seventh angel will blow his trumpet, then the mystery of God will be completed, as he announced to his servants the prophets.”

⁸Then the voice that I heard from heaven spoke to me again and said, “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”

⁹So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take and eat it; it will be bitter in your stomach, but it will be as sweet as honey in your mouth.”

¹⁰Then I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It was as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I ate it, my stomach became bitter.

¹¹And they said to me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”

¹Then I was given a measuring reed like a rod, with these words: “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count those who worship there.

²But exclude the courtyard outside the temple. Don’t measure it, because it is given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months.

³I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth.”

⁴These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.

⁵If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and consumes their enemies; if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way.

⁶They have authority to close up the sky so that it does not rain during the days of their prophecy. They also have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every plague whenever they want.

⁷When they finish their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war on them, conquer them, and kill them.

⁸Their dead bodies will lie in the main street of the great city, which figuratively is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

⁹And some of the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will view their bodies for three and a half days and not permit their bodies to be put into a tomb.

¹⁰Those who live on the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and send gifts to one another because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.

¹¹But after three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet. Great fear fell on those who saw them.

¹²Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” They went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them.

¹³At that moment a violent earthquake took place, a tenth of the city fell, and seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake. The survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

¹⁴The second woe has passed. Take note: The third woe is coming soon!

¹⁵The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.

¹⁶The twenty-four elders, who were seated before God on their thrones, fell facedown and worshiped God,

¹⁷saying, We give you thanks, Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.

¹⁸The nations were angry, but your wrath has come. The time has come for the dead to be judged and to give the reward to your servants the prophets, to the saints, and to those who fear your name, both small and great, and the time has come to destroy those who destroy the earth.

¹⁹Then the temple of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, an earthquake, and severe hail.