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Revelation

About this book
Chapter 21

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more.⁠ 2 And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem—descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.⁠ 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.”⁠ 5 And the one seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new!” Then he said to me, “Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.” 6 He also said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.⁠ To the one who is thirsty I will give water free of charge from the spring of the water of life. 7 The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But as for the cowards, unbelievers, detestable persons, murderers, the sexually immoral, and those who practice magic spells, idol worshipers, and all those who lie, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. That is the second death.” 9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven final plagues came and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb!” 10 So he took me away in the Spirit to a huge, majestic mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.⁠ 11 The city possesses the glory of God; its brilliance is like a precious jewel, like a stone of crystal-clear jasper.⁠ 12 It has a massive, high wall with twelve gates, with twelve angels at the gates, and the names of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel are written on the gates.⁠ 13 There are three gates on the east side, three gates on the north side, three gates on the south side, and three gates on the west side. 14 The wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 15 The angel who spoke to me had a golden measuring rod with which to measure the city and its foundation stones and wall.⁠ 16 Now the city is laid out as a square, its length and width the same. He measured the city with the measuring rod at 1,400 miles (its length and width and height are equal). 17 He also measured its wall, 144 cubits according to human measurement, which is also the angel’s. 18 The city’s wall is made of jasper and the city is pure gold, like transparent glass.⁠ 19 The foundations of the city’s wall are decorated with every kind of precious stone.⁠ The first foundation is jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21 And the twelve gates are twelve pearls—each one of the gates is made from just one pearl! The main street of the city is pure gold, like transparent glass.⁠ 22 Now I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God—the All-Powerful—and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb.⁠ 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their grandeur into it.⁠ 25 Its gates will never be closed during the day (and there will be no night there).⁠ 26 They will bring the grandeur and the wealth of the nations into it, 27 but nothing ritually unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or practices falsehood, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Texts in conversation

How Revelation's New Jerusalem Echoes 1 Enoch 90

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

1 Enoch 90 describes the Jerusalem temple folded up and replaced with a greater and permanent temple in a new Jerusalem. This apocalyptic language is repeated in Revelation 21, which also describes a new Jerusalem in a restored creation.

Passages

1 Enoch 90:28

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
25 Those seventy shepherds were judged and found guilty, and they were thrown into that fiery abyss. 26 I saw at that time how a similar abyss was opened in the middle of the earth, full of fire, and they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found guilty and thrown into this fiery abyss, and they burned; now this abyss was to the right of that house. 27 I saw those sheep burning, and their bones burning. 28 I stood up to watch until they folded up that old house; and they carried off all the pillars, and all the beams and ornaments of the house were folded up with it at the same time, and they carried it off and laid it in a place in the south of the land. 29 I watched until the Lord of the sheep brought a new house, greater and loftier than the first, and set it up in the place of the first, which had been folded up; all its pillars were new, and its ornaments were new and larger than those of the first, the old one which He had taken away, and all the sheep were within it. 30 I saw all the sheep which had been left, and all the beasts on the earth, and all the birds of heaven, falling down and doing homage to those sheep, and making petition to them and obeying them in everything.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Revelation 21:1

New Testament
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more. 2 And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem—descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.” 5 And the one seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new!” Then he said to me, “Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.”
92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

"... 1 Enoch 85-90 is a long allegorical account of the history of Israel from the Creation to the messianic age. There is some mixing of metaphor, but in general men, Israelites and others, are represented by various kinds of animals. The present passage is the close of the allegory, which was written probably in or not long after the time of the Maccabees ... The old Jerusalem is to be replaced by a new one which God himself will establish. The idea of a new Jerusalem, or new Temple, is fairly a common in apocalyptic writings, compare Revelation 21:2 ..."
C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Writings from Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire That Illuminate Christian Origins (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1995), 327–328.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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1 Enoch 90:28 and Revelation 21:1

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