REVELATION 7

An angel came up from the east and commanded the four angels stationed in four directions to continue restraining the destructive winds until angels had sealed God’s servants.

1 After this I saw four angels. One was standing at the north, one at the east, one at the south, and one at the west. They were restraining the winds that blew from all directions [MTY] to keep them from blowing destructively on the earth or on the ocean or even on any tree. 2 I saw another angel come up from the east. He was carrying God’s seal. With this seal God, who is all-powerful, marks his own people to protect them. The angel called out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom he had given power to harm the earth and the ocean. He said 3 to them, "Do not harm the earth or the ocean or the trees until we (exc) have marked the servants of our (inc) God on their foreheads." 4 Then the angel and his fellow angels marked all God’s servants. I heard the number of people who were marked {whom the angels marked} because of their being God’s servants. The number was 144,000. They were from all the tribes of Israel. They symbolized the complete number of people whom God would protect. 5 The angels marked 12,000 people from the tribe of Judah, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, 6 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, 7 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12.000 from the tribe of Issachar, 8 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, and 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin.