Ezekiel - Lesson 49

Lesson 49, 7 times 7. Yahweh is there, the mother lode of sanctity in the holy land. Ezekiel 45, 1 to 8, 48, 8 to 22, and 30 to 35. I got the title for my last presentation on Ezekiel in this series, on the book of Ezekiel, from geologists.I was away from my office when I was thinking about these things. Now, I am not a geologist, nor the son of a geologist, so I reluctantly searched the internet for geologists' definitions of words here and there, of the words lode, L-O-D-E, and motherlode, and found some that were helpful. But I have learned long ago that you cannot trust what you read on the internet, especially Wikipedia, so I thought I would check with an expert.I texted my grandson, who was a senior at Wheaton College and would be graduating with a degree in geology the coming May. He graciously and professionally obliged with the following definition. In geology, a lode is a deposit of metalliferous ore that fills or is embedded in a fissure, a crack, in a rock formation or a vein that is deposited or embedded between layers of rock.Two, a motherlode is a principal vein or zone of gold and silver. The term is also used colloquially to refer to the real or imaginary origin of something valuable or in great abundance. From the internet, I learned that the expression motherlode was used particularly of the vein of gold that led to the California gold rush in the mid-19th century.Of course, this moment in history is memorialized in the name of San Francisco's football team in the NFL, the 49ers, which has its roots in the prospectors who arrived in Northern California in the 1849 gold rush. In everyday speech, motherlode has become idiomatic for the source of treasures of any sort whose influence often extends far beyond the source itself. For example, a university whose football program has produced a high number of professional players may be called the motherlode of talent.A file that has been discovered in the course of a criminal investigation may provide a motherlode of data that are extremely useful in establishing a case. So, we use it that way. It strikes me that this expression captures the significance of the temple in Ezekiel's vision of the land of Israel as a holy land, as we observed in the previous study.With the return of the glory in chapter 43, Yahweh established his residence in the land, but along with the life-giving water that flowed from beneath the threshold of the temple, the cloud of divine holiness expanded to engulf the square central reserve, the band that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, and then covered the entire land, sanctifying every square cubit of territory from Lebo Hamath in the north to the Wadi of Egypt in the south. The temple, which was supremely holy, was named Yahweh Shammah and its associated structures because Yahweh resided there, which meant that it represented the motherlode of sanctity, a sanctity that ultimately spread to the entire land of Israel and engulfed it. When we started this series of lessons on Ezekiel, we began by asking, where is God when you need him, and why does God abandon his people? Through 49 lessons, studies, we have been reflecting on this theme.When God abandons his people and when we reach chapter 25, we started to think of when God returns to his people, which became a reality then in chapters 34 and following. Actually, we labeled the first address after the turn in disposition to the bad good news, that's chapter 25, for once Jerusalem had fallen, Yahweh's tone turned toward the restoration of his people and the triangular covenant involving the land. We had heard sketchy, brief sparks of the good good news in a half-dozen places in the overwhelmingly judgmental first 24 chapters.However, in the present arrangement of the book, Yahweh's oracles against the foreign nations, chapters 25 to 32, which represent bad news for the nations but good news for Israel and Judah, these provide a buffer between the darkness of chapter 24 or 1 to 24 and the brilliance of chapters 34 to 48. And now when we come to this last chapter, it's the most brilliant of all. Concerning the fate of Jerusalem and Judah, chapter 33 is historically and rhetorically transitional.In the passage under study in this session, we have reached the almost blinding light of Israel's new day and the moment for which Yahweh's eagerness exceeded even that of his people. Since chapter 25, we have celebrated the gospel according to Ezekiel as we have explored what the Israelite world would look like when Yahweh returned. And when we arrive at his final word in the book, Yahweh is there, we are breathless.But we need to talk about the terumah, the load of sanctity in the holy land. I started using that word already in the previous session. We begin our prospecting for this lodestone by looking at Ezekiel's description of the central band stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, 45, 1 to 8 and 48, 8 to 22.This is the sacred reserve at the very heart of the new holy land of Israel. Just as Mount Sinai had turned into a holy place when Yahweh came from heaven and set foot on terra firma, so in Ezekiel's last vision, this land became a holy land when the glory of Yahweh returned. If God had called out to Moses and told him to take off his sandals for the ground on which he was standing was holy ground, Exodus 3, 5, then all who would enter this hallowed place must certainly take off their shoes and fall down in prostration and homage before the God of the universe who was also the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their descendants to whom he had promised this land and who had promised to return to it himself.Having clarified the tribal allotments in Ezekiel's vision of Israel's future in the previous session, we may now look more closely at that narrow band that separated the five southern tribes from the seven northern tribes. In geological terms, this is the vein of sanctity that spreads out from the mother lode, the temple, between the strata of rock represented by the seven northern and five southern tribes, specifically between Judah to the north and Benjamin to the south. We could have dealt with this strip earlier if we had had time and devoted an entire session to the role of the prince, Hanasi, in this new Israelite order, which we read about in Ezekiel 44, 1 to 3, 45, 1 to 8a, and 16 to 7, and 46, 1 to 18.The prince, his role was to function as the apparently royal patron and guardian of worship in the temple compound as described in 46, 1 to 2, and 8 to 10. And I assume he's royal because he has the same title as the kings in the earlier parts of the book, the Nasi, and also the title that David would bear in chapters 34 and 37. But let's read the text on the prince.Thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, The gate of the inner court that faces east shall remain closed during the six working days, but on the Sabbath day it shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened. The prince, Hanasi, shall enter from the outside by way of the vestibule of the gateway, and he shall stop next to the doorpost of the gate, while the priests present his whole burnt offering and his peace offerings. Then he shall prostrate himself in the threshold of the gate and make his exit, but the gate shall not be closed until evening.When the prince enters, he shall come in by way of the vestibule of the gateway, and he shall exit by the same way. When the people of the land come before Yahweh at the appointed celebrations, anyone who enters by way of the north gate to worship shall leave by the way of the south gate, and whoever enters by way of the south gate shall leave by way of the north gate. They shall not go back through the gate by which they entered.They shall indeed exit through the opposite gate, and the prince shall come in among them when they enter, and he shall exit among them when they leave. These verses emphasize the role of the prince in worship inside the temple as a spectator and as a patron, somebody who's watching out, apparently, that everything is being done right. However, the identification of the core of this land as the Terumah is striking, and now we have to talk about it.The word Terumah derives from the verb rum, to be high, and it usually refers to the presentation of property to Yahweh as a gift. This sense is reflected in the expression, to raise a contribution to Yahweh, Herum Terumah leYahweh, in Exodus 35, 34 and Numbers 15, 19 to 20. As a priest, Ezekiel was obviously familiar with this cultic usage as he demonstrated in 20, 40 and 44, 30.On the contrary, on my holy mountain, the high mountain of Israel, the declaration of the Lord Yahweh, there the whole house of Israel, all of them, will serve me in the homeland. There I will accept them, and there I will accept your contributions, Terumoth, the plural, and your choice gifts, all your holy gifts. That's 20, verse 40.The first of all, the first ripened produce of all kinds, and every gift, Terumah, of whatever kind from all your gifts, must belong to the priest, and the first of your pastry you must give to the priest, to cause a blessing to rest over your homes. That's 44, 30. See also 45, 13 and 16.Ezekiel's application of the word to real estate is unprecedented and unparalleled in the first testament. Never happens anywhere else that it's applied to space, physical space. In the context of the allocation of the tribal territories, the Israelites were to reserve a portion of the land as a gift for Yahweh to remove the Yahweh from the land.The expression recognized the entire land as Yahweh's sacred gift to Israel, and portrayed it as a permanent token of their acceptance of this gift, and their determination to administer it on his behalf, and for his glory. So let's talk about the Terumah, its location. Before examining the nature of the Terumah itself, we must establish its geographic context.This sacred Terumah was a square, 25,000 cubits wide and 25,000 cubits deep. It was situated not within any tribe's territory, but between the tribal allotments of Judah to the north and Benjamin to the south, 48, 8 and 22. This square was located in the middle of a band that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and ran parallel to the tribal allotments, 45, 7, 48, 21.Since the Terumah abutted the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the size of the sacred Terumah, that is, 8.3 miles, 25,000 cubits in long cubits, this determined the width of the land. This was the only horizontal band in Ezekiel's map for which we know the width. Let's talk then about the prince's holding within this band.Within this band, the Terumah was flanked by land assigned to the prince as his property. It did not belong to the prince in an absolute sense. The entire land belonged to Yahweh, but Yahweh assigned it to him to administer.According to 46, 16 to 18, the prince could distribute his holding among his sons, and if he gave any portion of it to his servants in the year of release, it must return to the prince. However, the prince's holding was restricted to this land on both sides of the Terumah. Yahweh strictly forbade him from seizing property that was designated Yahweh's grant, nakilah, to the citizens from any of the tribes, 46, 16 to 18, like Ahab and Jezebel had done to Naboth in 1 Kings 21.In 46, 16, we read, thus has the Lord Yahweh declared, if the prince presents a gift to each of his sons as an inheritance, it shall belong to his sons, it shall be their possession by inheritance. And if he presents a gift from his inheritance to one of his servants, it shall belong to him until the year of liberation, jubilee, when it shall return to the prince. His sons shall by all means keep their inheritance.The prince shall not seize any of the people's inheritance, their grants of land would be better here, by evicting them from their property. He must grant the inheritance to his sons from his own property in order that none of my people are dispossessed of their own property. Ezekiel never explained exactly what the prince was to do with the land.Since one of his roles was to serve as the royal patron and, should we say, supervisor of the national cult, 44, 1 to 3, and 46, 1 to 12, and he was specifically charged to provide prescribed animals, grain, and oil for the purification, that is the de-sin offerings, and the whole burnt and grain offerings, 45, 21 to 25, presumably his and his household's management of the land would ensure that the cultic officials in the temple would have a constant supply of first-quality sacrificial animals and agricultural products for offerings to Yahweh. Given the location of the Terumah, we may imagine that citizens from the tribal territories would bring their offerings, whether in the form of livestock or the produce of plants, to the prince as custodians to manage until they were needed at the sanctuary. Alternatively, given the Torah's generous provision for people in the old Israel, who lived far from the central sanctuary, they could exchange silver for offerings, whether animal or agricultural products.That's an allowance in Deuteronomy 14, 22 to 26, which says that if you live so far away that you can't bring your firstborn of your herds and flocks all that distance, it's very inconvenient and would take a long time to travel that distance, just bring some silver, and when you get to the temple area, you can buy some local produce, and it's just fine. It's also possible that the prince and his personnel would specialize in producing high-quality livestock and foodstuffs, which they would make available to the worshipers, especially to those who came to the central sanctuary from the farthest reaches of the assigned tribal territories. As described in Ezekiel 45, 7 to 9, the prince's allotment addressed the propensity of past princes of Israel, the kings, to exploit the resources of the nation and the tribes for personal gain.This is mentioned in 45, 7 to 9, and it echoes or alludes to 34, 1 to 10, where we saw that happening. And you shall set aside, here's 45, 7 to 9, and you shall set aside space for the prince on each side of the holy reserve and the city property, in front of the holy reserve, on the west and the east sides. Its length shall correspond to the tribal territories from the western border to the eastern border of the land, and it shall be his possession in Israel.No longer shall my princes oppress my people, but they shall permit the house of Israel to have the land according to their tribes. This is what the Lord has declared. You have gone far enough, O princes of Israel.Put a stop to your violence and abuse. This more than generous allotment for him rendered all exploitation unnecessary and invited the holder of the office to serve the interests of the nation, which Ezekiel envisioned as a trans-tribal community of worshipers. That was the prince's property on both sides of the Terumah.Now let's go back to the sacred Terumah. Ezekiel's description of the square in the middle of this band is extremely brief, and readers are left to speculate about its character and its function. However, from 45.1 to 6, the sanctity of four-fifths of the square is evident in the designations at Terumah belonging to Yahweh, that is, a holy district isolated from the land, verses 1 and 4. What rendered this allotment particularly holy was the presence of a 500-by-500-cubit-square temple complex, verse 4, that included priest's residences and the sanctuary, the mikdash, within which the priests ministered to Yahweh.Although Ezekiel sometimes spoke of the entire 25,000-by-25,000-cubit-square as a Terumah, 48.20, and in 45.1 to 6, the technical designation applied only to the northern four-fifths of that square, which was divided into two strips, each 10,000 cubits wide and 25,000 cubits long, that is, running east-west parallel to the tribal allotments, and the sacred band itself. These strips were allotted to the Levites and the priests who ministered in the sanctuary, 45.3 to 5, 48.10 to 14. The text is unclear which of these groups was assigned to either strip, but logic would locate the temple in the center of the Terumah, broadly defined, that is, within the priestly allotment in the middle.This would mean that the northern strip abutting the tribal territory of Judah was occupied by Levites who played secondary and tertiary roles in the maintenance of the cult and the worship of the people, and apparently the priestly allotment was further divided into a Zadokite segment and a segment for other Aaronid priests, Aaronic priests, 40, 44 to 46. This design highlights the increasing sanctity of geographic space as we move from the periphery of the land to the holy of holies inside the temple. But then there's another little feature here, that southern 5,000-cubit-wide strip.Here we find a southern town and its adjacent areas right in the middle of that strip. The remainder of the central square is what this consists of. It's a wide strip, 5,000 cubits running east to west, abutting the territory of Benjamin to the south.This segment was divided into three parts with a walled enclosure identified as the town, sandwiched between eastern and western blocks. The town, usually translated the city, but that connotes the wrong things. The town is the same expression that Ezekiel had used for Yahweh's residence, the temple complex, farther north, earlier in this vision, 41 to 2. If we remember that ear, usually rendered city, in translation, was essentially geographic space defined by walls with access gained through gate structures, then we understand the usage of the word for both.The temple itself was a town with walls, and that is the 500-cubit temple square. It functioned as Yahweh's town, 42, 16 to 19. But this piece of real estate, it was a 4,500-cubit square surrounded by a 250-cubit belt of open pasture land, which yielded an inclusive square of 5,000 cubits, 48, 15 to 17.It's all very complicated and technical, and that's why we have attached a diagram of this. In verse 15, 48, 15, we read, the remaining 5,000-cubits-wide area alongside the 25,000-cubits shall be open to the public. It shall belong to the city, providing residential and open space.The city itself shall be located in the center. These are its, the city, the town's dimensions, the north side, 4,500 cubits, the south side, 4,500 cubits, the east and the west sides, 4,500 cubits. The open space belonging to the city shall extend 250 cubits to the north, 250 cubits to the south and to the east and to the west.The remaining area that runs lengthwise along the sacred reserve shall measure 10,000 cubits on the east side and 10,000 cubits on the west side. Its produce shall provide food for the town's laborers. The town's workforce coming from all the tribes of Israel shall farm it.The entire reserve shall be a square, 25,000 cubits by 25,000 cubits. You shall set apart the sacred reserve along with the property of the city. The remaining areas on either side of the reserve and the city property shall belong to the prince.The prince shall own the land parallel to the tribal portions from the 25,000-cubit reserve as far as the eastern frontier and western from the 25,000-cubit reserve as far as the western frontier. The sacred reserve and the sanctuary of the temple shall be located in its center. It shall be separate from the property of the Levites and the prince.The area lying between the territory of Judah and the territory of Benjamin shall belong to the prince. Well, in this case, the space is appropriately represented by the English word town because it was designated for human occupation. So that's how we interpret a town.Presumably by worshipers who would come from all the tribes and enter and exit out into the open space through the 12 gates named after the ancestors of the 12 tribes because Levi's name appeared over one of the gates appropriately on the north side. Joseph represented both Ephraim and Manasseh. Now they're put together again, whereas they had separate territorial allotments.The Benjamin gate was located either on the east side or the west side rather than toward the Benjaminite territory to the south, which suggests that these were monumental gates and that entrance through them was not restricted to persons from the tribes represented by the names of the gates. They're just monumental names. Although Ezekiel did not specify the function of the town itself, presumably the structures inside this space functioned as temporary dormitory rooms for worshipers.Ezekiel offered some clues to the function of the spaces on either side of the town that extended from the pasture land, though he didn't talk about the town itself that way. He offered some clues to the function of the spaces on either side of the town that extended from the pasture land around the town itself, a little strip, to the eastern and western borders of the 5,000 by 25,000 cubit strip of land within the Terumah more broadly defined. Ezekiel 48.15 characterized this area as common as opposed to holy.This does not mean the prophet perceived it as secular, sterilized of theological and spiritual import, but that in contrast to the temple complex just to the north and the territories allotted to the holy functionaries, the priests and Levites, the area was for within the town, the holding of the town was for the benefit of the whole household of Israel. You all come. When you come to worship at the central sanctuary, you can spend your time socializing and sleeping and whatever else in this town.Specifically, this place would apparently provide residential and open space as suggested in 48.18 to 19. The remaining area that runs lengthwise along the sacred Terumah shall measure 10,000 cubits on the east side and 10,000 on the west. Its produce shall provide food for the city's laborers.The city's workforce coming from all the tribes of Israel shall farm it. This statement presents the land on either side of this town as a source of food for the town's workers. This expression distinguishes these people from worshipers who would probably typically spend a few days in the town and then return to their homes, providing lodging and food for all these pilgrims required permanent administrative arrangements and an organized labor force.To ensure parity and to provide equal access to the privilege, the workers would be drawn from all the tribes. We may speculate that these 10,000 by 5,000 cubit zones east and west of the town also compensated for land within the workers' own tribal allotments that they had to give up whenever they were appointed for service in the town. What about the relationship of the town to the temple? Lest readers lose sight of the spiritual significance of the town, the prophet's final vision and the book itself closed with a declaration of its name.From that time on, the name of the town shall be Yahweh Shammah. Yahweh is there. Like Ezekiel's restoration oracles and along with the geographic relocation of the temple appropriately 40 miles to the north of Jerusalem, the refusal to name this town Jerusalem or Zion, that's a riddle.Why does Ezekiel never call it Jerusalem and he doesn't call it Zion? This is a problem. It probably signaled the repudiation of Jerusalem's evil past. By this time, Jerusalem's bloodshed, abominations and idolatry had so polluted the name that apparently Yahweh could neither place it in the original location where Jerusalem was located nor name it after the old city whose name was Canaanite in any case.We know this from Egyptian records. Jerusalem was there long before the Israelites were here. Here Ezekiel looked forward to a new day when the people would no longer defile Yahweh's name, 43, 7 to 8, but both they and this city would bear his name with honor.The crisis for the name of Yahweh precipitated by Israel's sin and his abandonment of the city, graphically portrayed in chapters 8 to 11 and intensified by Judah's exile, 36, 20 to 23. That was all over. Remarkably, the town was not called Yahweh is here.It was called Yahweh is there. While the worshipers were here in the town as Yahweh's reconstituted people, the name pointed away from the town itself to Yahweh's actual residence two and a half miles north to the north. The center of gravity in Ezekiel's cartography of power and sanctity was obviously the temple not where the people were.The place where Yahweh resided in the midst of the most sacred Terumah, this was the motherlode of the whole business of his holiness. But with his new name, Yahweh is there, the implicit symbolism of the design became explicit. Even the town reflected the presence of Yahweh, not localized here, but it pointed you to just north of here.It's an invitation to come to his presence. This renaming converted a place of ordinary work and agricultural production with a mixed lay population into a civic counterbalance to the gravity of the temple within the sacred realm. The aura of the divine presence residing above the sanctuary, 3727, would emanate beyond the sacred residence, pervading the entire reserve Terumah and transform a symbol of mere social and civic egalitarianism into a portent of a new spiritual reality.This is a holy people. The name celebrated the healing of relationships among deity, people, and land. He's not there in Babylon.He's not there far away. He's there just over the hill. You can see the light of his presence.In the new order where the people were, there was Yahweh. He did not only invite them to himself in the temple, he had come to them. As we have observed, for all the order that characterized the tribal allotments, Ezekiel's cartographic map scheme riveted the attention on the sacred Terumah.Two considerations appear to have governed the placement and design of this reserve. One, a sense of proportion to reflect the order that prevails, where Yahweh has his rightful place and Israel's covenantal status is restored. And a concern to reflect gradations of sanctity as one moved from one part to the next.As worshipers journeyed from their home territories to the temple, they would have passed through the series of increasingly sacred spaces. First, they would come from their territories as their place of origin. Then, they would pass through their neighbor's territories if you're in the farther reaches of the land.They would come to the prince's territory and the apparently unoccupied strip of pasture land around the town. Then, they would enter the town whose gates with their number 12, their location three on each side, and their names, the 12 tribes of Israel, highlighted the accessibility of the city to all Israel, even wretched Danites and wretched Ephraimites. And the priestly reserve set aside for Zedekites, they'd come through that territory, a subset of the Levites responsible for the ritual, and then they'd land up at the temple reserved for God himself.What can we say about all of this that has any theological and practical relevance for us? Well, it's like straining with a fine sieve. In spite of Ezekiel's overt parochialism in this, the last in the collection of his prophecies, the theological implications of this for the modern reader are actually quite powerful. It is a very parochial picture.There are only Israelites here in Ezekiel's vision. Jeremiah has a slightly broader vision than this, but Isaiah, of course, ends with a very universalistic portrait of reality, but not so Ezekiel. But what lessons can we learn? First, Ezekiel's vision of Israel's territorial arrangement offered a profound theology of land.We talked about this already last week, but now there's more to be said. Most obviously, again, the land belongs to God. As sovereign, he had authority to distribute it among his people.He is entitled to royal lands, and his residence constitutes the geographic center of gravity. His call for a Terumah invited his subjects to acknowledge his sovereignty and to celebrate the receipt of the national territory as a gift from him. Just as in the cult, where the Terumah offered worshipers an opportunity to return a gift of produce to the Lord in the recognition of his ownership over all things, so this territorial Terumah reminded Israel that Yahweh was the real owner of the land.Second, Ezekiel's territorial vision extended the concentric rectangles of graded sanctity far beyond the temple walls. That concentricity is admittedly not exact, but the sanctuary represented the center of gravity, the mother lode, for the priestly share of the Terumah, which was the center of gravity of the central square of the reserve, which was the center of gravity for the nation as a whole. Whereas the temple design carefully regulated access to different gradations of holiness in worship, the territorial allotments regulated life.Priests and Levites did not occupy tribal territory, but they and only they could live in the land set aside for Yahweh. Citizens of the twelve tribes could own their own land, but access to the Terumah would be temporary, and they entered through the filter of the town. To the smallest and the largest detail, Ezekiel's final vision proclaims the holiness of Yahweh and the sanctity of the land.Third, Ezekiel's territorial vision proclaimed a new understanding of the community of faith. The allocation of land to each tribe with special allotment for religious functionaries recognized structure within the people of God. But this city reflected Yahweh's invitation to the entire household of faith, irrespective of tribe and social standing, come.Furthermore, and despite the prophet's exclusivist visions, aliens were welcome here. They may come to Yahweh, but they must come on his terms through the existing community of faith and as part of that community. But if they identify with the faith of his people, they are entitled to all the rights and privileges extended to the heirs of the traditions.Fourth, the primary concern of this vision was not political, but cultic. The issue was not the return of David, but the presence of Yahweh. Accordingly, the Nasi's role was facilitative, not regally symbolic.This creates some questions about the relationship of this Nasi and the messianic Nasi earlier. But unlike past kings who perverted the worship of Yahweh for selfish ends or sponsored the worship of other gods, this Nasi's charge was to promote the worship of Yahweh in spirit and in truth. In this vision, and only here, with its radically theocentric portrayal of Israel's future, the Nasi emerged as a religious patron, an under-shepherd installed by Yahweh after he has personally rescued Israel.Yahweh had recalled the people to himself and established his residence in the midst and let them celebrate and let the Nasi lead the way. And herein lies the hope of Ezekiel's message for Christians. Communion with God may have geographical implications, but as Jesus reminded the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, very close to this location of this motherlode of sanctity, as I understand it, 1 John 4, 7 to 26, especially verses 21 to 26, it is not about geography, but about the presence of Yahweh incarnate, who was speaking to the woman at that time.In Jesus, the Messiah, the glory of Yahweh has descended and dwells among us, full of grace and truth, John 1, 14. He is Immanuel, God with us. And where two or three are gathered in Jesus' name, guess what? There he is, Matthew 18, 20.In the book of Revelation, John's vision of the cosmos, of the cosmos' destiny, expanded Ezekiel's vision way beyond the sacred Terumah and the tribal allotments to encompass the whole world. After the binding of Satan, the great white throne judgment, and the death and Hades and their contents, that is, those whose names were not written in the book of life, after these were thrown into the lake of fire, Revelation 27 to 15, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared, and the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.And I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, look, God's home is now among his people. He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. And the one sitting on the throne said, look, I am making everything new.And then he said to me, write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true. It sounds like the Lord talking to Ezekiel. And he also said, it's finished.I am the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. To all who are thirsty, I will give freely from the springs of water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars, their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. Then one of the seven angels who held the seven bowls containing the seven last plagues came and said to me, come with me.I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. So he took me in the Spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone, like jasper as clear as crystal.The city wall was broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels, and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates. There were three gates on each side, east, north, south, and west. The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.The angel who talked to me held out in his hand a gold measuring stick to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. When he measured it, he found that it was square, as wide as it was long. In fact, its length and width and height were each, appropriately, fourteen hundred miles, twelve thousand stadia.Then he measured the walls and found them to be two hundred and sixteen feet thick, one hundred and forty-four cubits, according to the human standard used by the angel. The wall was made up of jasper, and the city was of pure gold, as clear as glass. The wall of the city was built on foundation stones, inlaid with twelve precious stones.The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, and the tenth chrysophrase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were made of pearls, each gate from a single pearl, and the main street was pure gold. I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, and the city has no need of sun or moon for the glory of God to illuminate the city, and the Lamb is its light.The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. The nations, yes, the nations, that's us. Its gates will never be closed at the end of the day, because there is no night there, and all the nations will bring their glory and honor into the city.Nothing evil will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. Then the angel showed me a river with a water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down to the center of the main street.On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were for the medicine to heal the nations. No longer will there be a curse upon anything, for the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and His servants will worship Him, and they will see His face, and His name will be written on their foreheads.And there will be no night there, no need for lamps or light, for the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever and ever. Amen.