When the third angel sounded his trumpet a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on all the fresh waters. And they called the star Wormwood because a third of the fresh water became bitter and poisonous like wormwood (a bitter and poisonous root); and many died from the waters.

Though Hal Lindsey, again, thinks that the star is another thermonuclear weapon, most commentators think it is a celestial body like a meteor or a comet. Nonetheless, the most important thing here, and in each of the first four trumpets, is the result of what will happen—a third of the fresh drinking water will be poisoned so that many will die.