Revelation 21

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. ²And I saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

³And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold! God’s dwelling-tent is now among humanity, and he will pitch his tent among them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will exist no longer. Neither mourning, nor crying, nor pain will exist any longer, because the first things have passed away.”

⁵Then the one seated on the throne said, “Behold! I am making all things new.” And he said, “Write this down, because these words are faithful and true.” ⁶Then he said to me, “They have come to pass! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the one who is thirsty I will give water from the spring of the water of life as a gift. ⁷The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be God to him and he will be a son to me. ⁸But as for the cowardly, the unfaithful, the polluted, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all who are liars—their portion is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

⁹Then one of the seven angels who held the seven bowls full of the seven final plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” ¹⁰And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. ¹¹It possessed the glory of God. Its radiance was like an incredibly precious stone, like a crystal-clear jasper. ¹²It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates were twelve angels. Names were inscribed on the gates, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel: ¹³three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. ¹⁴And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

¹⁵The one speaking with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. ¹⁶The city is laid out as a square; its length is the same as its width. He measured the city with the rod at twelve thousand stadia; its length, width, and height are equal. ¹⁷He also measured its wall: one hundred forty-four cubits by human measurement, which was also the angel’s measurement.

¹⁸The material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. ¹⁹The foundations of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, ²⁰the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh hyacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. ²¹The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each individual gate was made from a single pearl. And the main street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

²²I saw no sanctuary in it, for the Lord God, the All-Powerful, is its sanctuary—and so is the Lamb. ²³The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. ²⁵Its gates will never be closed by day—and there will be no night there— ²⁶and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. ²⁷Nothing profane will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices what is loathsome or false, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.