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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

Compare Ezekiel 40:2 and Revelation 21:10

Hebrew Bible · New Testament

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Summary

Revelation’s description of the heavenly city descending onto a great mountain recalls Ezekiel’s vision of a divine, heavenly city. In Ezekiel, the mountain depicts the site of a renewed temple where heaven and earth meet.

Passages

Ezekiel 40:2

Hebrew Bible
1 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on this very day, the hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there. 2 By divine visions he brought me to the land of Israel and placed me on a very high mountain, and on it was a structure like a city, to the south. 3 When he brought me there, I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze, with a linen cord and a measuring stick in his hand. He was standing in the gateway. 4 The man said to me, “Son of man, watch closely, listen carefully, and pay attention to everything I show you, for you have been brought here so that I can show it to you. Tell the house of Israel everything you see.” 5 I saw a wall all around the outside of the temple. In the man’s hand was a measuring stick 10½ feet long. He measured the thickness of the wall as 10½ feet and its height as 10½ feet.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

Revelation 21:10

New Testament
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.
92–96 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Revelation

References

"... The description of the New Jerusalem is a remarkable weaving together of many strands of Old Testament tradition into a coherent and richly evocative image of a place in which people live in the immediate presence of God. It can be considered in its three aspects: place, people, presence of God ... The 'great high mountain' (21:10) to which the city descends has a long mythological ancestry as well as its immediate derivation from Ezekiel 40:2. It is the cosmic mountain where heaven and earth meet, where the gods dwelt, where sacred cities were built with temples at their heart. Paradise was on 'the holy mountain of God' (Ezekiel 28:14). Mount Zion on which Jerusalem and the temple stood was not in reality so very high, but was mythologically a very high mountain (Ezekiel 40:2): 'his holy mountain, beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth' (Psalm 48:2). As God's dwelling, the seat of his rule, 'the city of the great King', it was impregnable (Psalm 48). Even if God's throne was in heaven. Mount Zion was his footstool (Psalm 99) ..."
Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, New Testament Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 132–133.

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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Ezekiel 40:2 and Revelation 21:10

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