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Revelation 21

KJV · Chapter 21/22

1And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

6And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

7He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

8But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

9And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.

10And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,

11Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;

12And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

13On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.

14And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.

16And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

17And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.

18And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

19And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;

20The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

22And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

23And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

24And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

25And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.

26And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

27And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

📖 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 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. Revelation 21:26Repeats and reinforces the same idea from verse 24, with nations bringing their honor into the city.
  27. Revelation 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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