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New Testament Reading - The New Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb

⁹Then one of the seven angels who had emptied the flasks containing the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come with me and I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”

¹⁰In a vision he took me to a towering mountain peak, and from there I watched that wondrous city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of the skies from God. ¹¹It was filled with the glory of God and flashed and glowed like a precious gem, crystal clear like jasper. ¹²Its walls were broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels. And the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates. ¹³There were three gates on each side—north, south, east, and west. ¹⁴The walls had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

¹⁵The angel held in his hand a golden measuring stick to measure the city and its gates and walls. ¹⁶When he measured it, he found it was a square as wide as it was long; in fact it was in the form of a cube, for its height was exactly the same as its other dimensions — 1,500 miles each way. ¹⁷Then he measured the thickness of the walls and found them to be 216 feet across (the angel called out these measurements to me, using standard units).^a

^18-20The city itself was pure, transparent gold like glass! The wall was made of jasper, and was built on twelve layers of foundation stones inlaid with gems: the first layer^b with jasper; the second with sapphire; the third with chalcedony; the fourth with emerald; the fifth with sardonyx; the sixth layer with sardus; the seventh with chrysolite; the eighth with beryl; the ninth with topaz; the tenth with chrysoprase; the eleventh with jacinth; the twelfth with amethyst.

²¹The twelve gates were made of pearls—each gate from a single pearl! And the main street was pure, transparent gold, like glass.

1. Literally, “144 cubits by human measurements.” A cubit was the average length of a man’s arm—not an angel’s! The angel used normal units of measurement that John could understand.
2. Literally, “foundation.”