Apocalipse 21

BLIVRE · Chapter 21/22

1E eu vi um novo céu e uma nova terra; porque o primeiro céu e a primeira terra [já] passaram; e e [já] não havia mar.

2E eu, João, vi a cidade santa, a nova Jerusalém, descendo do céu [vinda] de Deus, preparada como noiva, adornada para seu marido.

3E eu ouvi uma grande voz do céu, dizendo: “Eis que o tabernáculo de Deus está com os seres humanos; e com eles habitará, e eles serão seu povo, e o próprio Deus estará com eles, [e será] seu Deus.

4E Deus limpará toda lágrima dos olhos deles; e não haverá mais morte, nem pranto, nem clamor, nem mais haverá dor; porque as primeiras coisas [já] passaram.”

5E o que estava sentado sobre o trono disse: “Eis que eu faço novas todas as coisas.” E ele me disse: “Escreve, porque estas palavras são verdadeiras e fiéis.”

6E ele me disse: “Está feito. Eu sou o Alfa e o Ômega, o princípio e o fim. Quem tiver sede, de graça eu lhe darei da fonte da água da vida.

7Quem vencer herdará todas as coisas; e eu serei Deus dele, e ele será meu filho.

8Mas [quanto] aos covardes, e aos incrédulos, e aos abomináveis, e aos homicidas, e aos pecadores sexuais, e aos feiticeiros, e aos idólatras, e a todos os mentirosos, a parte deles será no lago que queima com fogo e enxofre, que é a segunda morte.”

9E veio a mim um dos sete anjos que tinham as sete taças cheias das sete últimas pragas; e ele falou comigo, dizendo: “Vem, [e] eu te mostrarei a noiva, a mulher do Cordeiro.”

10E ele me levou em espírito a um grande e alto monte; e ele me mostrou a grande cidade, a santa Jerusalém, descendo do céu [vinda] de Deus;

11[E] tendo a glória de Deus; e sua luz era semelhante a uma pedra preciosíssima, como a pedra de jaspe, como cristal brilhante;

12[E] tinha um grande e alto muro tendo doze portas; e nas portas doze anjos, e nomes escritos nelas, que são os [nomes] das doze tribos dos filhos de Israel.

13No oriente [tinha] três portas; no norte três portas, no sul três portas, [e] no ocidente três portas.

14E o muro da cidade tinha doze fundamentos, e neles os nomes dos doze apóstolos do Cordeiro.

15E aquele que estava falando comigo tinha uma cana de ouro, para medir a cidade, e suas portas, e seu muro.

16E a cidade estava posta [na forma] de um quadrado; e o seu comprimento era tanto quanto [sua] largura. E ele mediu a cidade com a cana até doze mil estádios; e seu comprimento, largura e altura eram iguais.

17E ele mediu seu muro de cento e quarenta e quatro côvados, [conforme] a medida humana, que é [também] a do anjo.

18E a constituição de seu muro era [de] jaspe; e a cidade [era] de ouro puro, semelhante a vidro puro.

19E os fundamentos do muro da cidade estavam adornados com toda pedra preciosa; o primeiro fundamento era jaspe; o segundo, safira; o terceiro, calcedônia; o quarto, esmeralda;

20O quinto, sardônica; o sexto, sárdio; o sétimo, crisólito; o oitavo, berilo; o nono, topázio; o décimo, crisópraso; o décimo primeiro, jacinto; o décimo segundo, ametista.

21E as doze portas eram doze pérolas; cada uma das portas era de uma pérola; e a praça da cidade [era] de ouro puro, como vidro transparente.

22E nela eu não vi templo, porque o templo dela é o Senhor Deus Todo-Poderoso, e o Cordeiro.

23E a cidade não necessita de sol nem de lua para que brilhem nela; porque a glória de Deus a ilumina, e sua lâmpada [é] o Cordeiro.

24E as nações dos salvos andarão na luz dela; e os reis da terra trarão a ela a glória e honra deles.

25E suas portas não se fecharão de dia; porque ali não haverá noite.

26E a ela serão trazidas a glória e a honra das nações.

27E de maneira nenhuma entrará nela algo que contamine, faça abominação e mentira; a não ser somente aqueles que estão escritos no livro da vida do Cordeiro.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

John sees a new heaven and a new earth, with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven like a bride prepared for her husband, where God will dwell with humanity and wipe away every tear, putting an end to death, mourning, and pain. The city is described with magnificent dimensions and materials, symbolizing perfection and glory.

Explanation

The promise that God 'will wipe away every tear from their eyes' and that there will be 'no more death, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain' (21:4) is one of the most comforting passages in the entire Bible, directly answering the suffering that permeates much of the book of Revelation up to this point. The city's symmetrical, enormous measurements (a perfect cube of roughly 2,200 kilometers on each side) should not be read as literal architecture but as symbolic language of absolute perfection, since a perfect cube also describes the shape of the Most Holy Place in Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:20), suggesting that the whole city now becomes a most holy place of divine presence. The absence of a temple in the city ('its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb,' 21:22) marks the climax of the entire biblical journey, from Eden to this point: God's presence finally dwelling openly and without barriers with humanity. Today's practical application is that all present pain and loss have a concrete future hope of complete restoration promised by God.

Fun facts

  • The dimensions of the New Jerusalem, described as twelve thousand stadia on each side (roughly 2,200 km), forming a perfect cube, deliberately echo the cubic proportions of the Most Holy Place in Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:20), suggesting that the entire city becomes a most holy place.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Apocalipse 21:1Throughout the book, the sea represented chaos and danger — it was from there that the beast of chapter 13 came. Saying there is no more sea describes the end of that source of threat, not a claim about literal geography.
  2. Apocalipse 21:2This scene continues the marriage image already used in chapter 19, now applied to an entire city; ancient readers were used to blending two images like this, a city and a person, without finding it strange.
  3. Apocalipse 21:3Draws on covenant language used many times in the Old Testament, “they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God,” now described as a permanent, final reality, with no more separation between God and humanity.
  4. Apocalipse 21:4Repeats almost the same promise of comfort already seen in chapter 7, now explicitly tied to the end of all prior suffering: “the former things are passed away.”
  5. Apocalipse 21:5God speaks directly for the first time in the book (earlier speeches generally came through angels or voices), making a central declaration: everything is being made new, not replaced by something entirely different.
  6. Apocalipse 21:6Repeats the title “Alpha and Omega” already used in the greeting of chapter 1, now attached to a concrete promise: water from the fountain of life, freely given, to whoever thirsts.
  7. Apocalipse 21:7The language of a “son” inheriting everything echoes an ancient promise made to King David in 2 Samuel, applied here to anyone who remains faithful to the end.
  8. Apocalipse 21:8In direct contrast to the previous promise, this list of rejected behaviors ends in the same lake of fire already mentioned as the “second death,” repeating the pattern of consequence set out in chapter 20.
  9. Apocalipse 21:9The same kind of angel who showed John the corrupt whore in chapter 17 now shows the complete contrast: the bride, the Lamb's wife, an image that will fill the rest of the chapter.
  10. Apocalipse 21:10John is carried to a great, high mountain to view the city from above, a panoramic device common in prophetic texts like Ezekiel, who also saw the restored temple from a mountain.
  11. Apocalipse 21:11Describing the city only through light and precious stones, with no human form, follows the same tradition already seen in chapter 4 of representing God (and now His city) through radiance rather than physical image.
  12. Apocalipse 21:12Placing the names of the twelve tribes on the gates and the twelve apostles on the foundations visually joins the whole history of God's people, the old covenant and the new, into a single structure.
  13. Apocalipse 21:13The arrangement of the twelve gates, three on each side, recalls the organized camp of the twelve tribes of Israel around the tabernacle, described in Numbers.
  14. Apocalipse 21:14Just as the gates carry the names of the twelve tribes (previous verse), the foundations carry the names of the twelve apostles, symbolically joining the Old and New Testaments in the same structure.
  15. Apocalipse 21:15The golden reed used for measuring draws on the same practice already seen in chapter 11, measuring something as a way of declaring that it belongs to God.
  16. Apocalipse 21:16A city shaped like a perfect cube recalls the shape of the Most Holy Place in Solomon's temple. Its gigantic, symbolic size, comparable to the whole span of the world known to readers of the time, communicates greatness and perfection, not a literal architectural plan.
  17. Apocalipse 21:17The measurement of “an hundred and forty and four cubits” repeats the same symbolic number already used for the 144,000 sealed in chapter 7, twelve multiplied by twelve.
  18. Apocalipse 21:18The combination of jasper and pure gold “like unto clear glass” describes a luminous, transparent city, an image impossible to exist literally, but effective at communicating purity and radiance.
  19. Apocalipse 21:19This list of twelve stones deliberately echoes the twelve stones of the breastplate worn by the high priest in Exodus 28, linking the foundations of the new city to Israel's ancient priesthood.
  20. Apocalipse 21:20Continues the list of the twelve precious stones of the foundations, which deliberately echoes the twelve stones of the high priest's breastplate described in Exodus 28.
  21. Apocalipse 21:21Each gate made of a single giant pearl is another physically impossible image, following the same pattern of symbolic exaggeration used to communicate wealth and perfection, not literal architecture.
  22. Apocalipse 21:22A striking reversal: instead of a temple, the place where people used to go to draw near to God, it is God's own presence that fills the entire city. The idea is direct access, not the absence of something sacred.
  23. Apocalipse 21:23The absence of sun and moon, replaced by the glory of God and the Lamb as the source of light, is a reversal of the very creation of the world in Genesis, where sun and moon were created to give light.
  24. Apocalipse 21:24Nations and kings bringing glory into the city suggests that this final reality somehow includes peoples beyond a single original ethnic or religious group.
  25. Apocalipse 21:25Gates that never close, because there is no more night, is an image of total security, with no need for protection against nighttime threats.
  26. Apocalipse 21:26Repeats and reinforces the same idea from verse 24, with nations bringing their honor into the city.
  27. Apocalipse 21:27Closes the description of the city with the same criterion already used in the final judgment of chapter 20: only those written in the Lamb's book of life have access to this place.

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