Then I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, hold back the four winds so that they did not blow on the earth or sea, or on any tree. And I saw another angel coming up from the east, carrying the seal of the living God. And he shouted to those four angels, who had been given power to harm land and sea. “Wait! Don’t harm the land or the sea or the trees until we have placed the seal of God on the foreheads of His servants.”
And I heard how many were marked with the seal of God – 144,000 were sealed form all the tribes of Israel: (12,000 from each of the 12 tribes). (vv. 1-8, NLT