The Seven Angels with the Seven Vials

I saw another sign in heaven, great and wonderful: seven angels having the seven last plagues. For in them is filled up the wrath of God. (Apocalypse 15:1)

In this section of Saint John's vision, the text returns again to a series of plagues to be inflicted on the earth, the last of the series of humanity's afflictions before the end of the world. Here the seven angels hold their vessels containing the seven plagues and stand in readiness within a cloud, as if descending from heaven.