The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates. The water in the river was dried up. This prepared the way for the rulers from the east to come.
So this is what the Lord says: “I will defend you, Judah. I will make sure that Babylon is punished. I will dry up Babylon’s sea. And I will make her water springs become dry.
“I called someone in the north to come. He is coming from the east where the sun rises, and he honors my name. He tramples kings the way a potter softens clay with his feet.
Just as the Lord divided the Red Sea near Egypt, he will raise his arm in anger over the Euphrates River and hit it. It will divide into seven small rivers. They will be so small that the people can walk across with their sandals on.
Then the angel said to me, “You saw the waters where the prostitute sits. These waters are the many peoples, the different races, nations, and languages in the world.
Then I saw another angel coming from the east. This angel had the seal of the living God. The angel called out in a loud voice to the four angels. These were the four angels that God had given the power to hurt the earth and the sea. The angel said to them,
I am calling a man from the east to do what I want. He will come like an eagle from a faraway country. He will do all that I have planned. Everything I said will happen just as I said it would.
But the Lord will bring the king of Assyria and all his power against them. The Assyrians will come like their swift moving river, like water that rises and spills over its banks.