The New Heaven and the New Earth

Revelation 21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished. ²And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband. ³I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: "Now God's home is with people! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. ⁴He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. The old things have disappeared."
⁵Then the one who sits on the throne said, "And now I make all things new!" He also said to me, "Write this, because these words are true and can be trusted." ⁶And he said, "It is done! I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end. To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it. ⁷Those who win the victory will receive this from me: I will be their God, and they will be my children. ⁸But cowards, traitors, perverts, murderers, the immoral, those who practice magic, those who worship idols, and all liars--the place for them is the lake burning with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

The New Jerusalem

⁹One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came to me and said, "Come, and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." ¹⁰The Spirit took control of me, and the angel carried me to the top of a very high mountain. He showed me Jerusalem, the Holy City, coming down out of heaven from God ¹¹and shining with the glory of God. The city shone like a precious stone, like a jasper, clear as crystal. ¹²It had a great, high wall with twelve gates and with twelve angels in charge of the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of the people of Israel. ¹³There were three gates on each side: three on the east, three on the south, three on the north, and three on the west. ¹⁴The city's wall was built on twelve foundation stones, on which were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. ¹⁵The angel who spoke to me had a gold measuring stick to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. ¹⁶The city was perfectly square, as wide as it was long. The angel measured the city with his measuring stick: it was fifteen hundred miles long and was as wide and as high as it was long. ¹⁷The angel also measured the wall, and it was 216 feet high, according to the standard unit of measure which he was using. ¹⁸The wall was made of jasper, and the city itself was made of pure gold, as clear as glass. ¹⁹The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The first foundation stone was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, ²⁰the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh yellow quartz, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chalcedony, the eleventh turquoise, the twelfth amethyst. ²¹The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each gate was made from a single pearl. The street of the city was of pure gold, transparent as glass.
²²I did not see a temple in the city, because its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. ²³The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God shines on it, and the Lamb is its lamp. ²⁴The peoples of the world will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their wealth into it. ²⁵The gates of the city will stand open all day; they will never be closed, because there will be no night there. ²⁶The greatness and the wealth of the nations will be brought into the city. ²⁷But nothing that is impure will enter the city, nor anyone who does shameful things or tells lies. Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of the living will enter the city.
Revelation 22 The angel also showed me the river of the water of life, sparkling like crystal, and coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²and flowing down the middle of the city's street. On each side of the river was the tree of life, which bears fruit twelve times a year, once each month; and its leaves are for the healing of the nations. ³Nothing that is under God's curse will be found in the city.
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him. ⁴They will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. ⁵There shall be no more night, and they will not need lamps or sunlight, because the Lord God will be their light, and they will rule as kings forever and ever.

The Coming of Jesus

⁶Then the angel said to me, "These words are true and can be trusted. And the Lord God, who gives his Spirit to the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must happen very soon."
⁷"Listen!" says Jesus. "I am coming soon! Happy are those who obey the prophetic words in this book!"
⁸I, John, have heard and seen all these things. And when I finished hearing and seeing them, I fell down at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things, and I was about to worship him. ⁹But he said to me, "Don't do it! I am a servant together with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all those who obey the words in this book. Worship God!" ¹⁰And he said to me, "Do not keep the prophetic words of this book a secret, because the time is near when all this will happen. ¹¹Whoever is evil must go on doing evil, and whoever is filthy must go on being filthy; whoever is good must go on doing good, and whoever is holy must go on being holy."
¹²"Listen!" says Jesus. "I am coming soon! I will bring my rewards with me, to give to each one according to what he has done. ¹³I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
¹⁴Happy are those who wash their robes clean and so have the right to eat the fruit from the tree of life and to go through the gates into the city. ¹⁵But outside the city are the perverts and those who practice magic, the immoral and the murderers, those who worship idols and those who are liars both in words and deeds.
¹⁶"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to announce these things to you in the churches. I am descended from the family of David; I am the bright morning star."
¹⁷The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!"
Everyone who hears this must also say, "Come!"
Come, whoever is thirsty; accept the water of life as a gift, whoever wants it.

Conclusion

¹⁸I, John, solemnly warn everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: if any add anything to them, God will add to their punishment the plagues described in this book. ¹⁹And if any take anything away from the prophetic words of this book, God will take away from them their share of the fruit of the tree of life and of the Holy City, which are described in this book.
²⁰He who gives his testimony to all this says, "Yes indeed! I am coming soon!"
So be it. Come, Lord Jesus!
²¹May the grace of the Lord Jesus be with everyone.

Isaiah 9 ¹There will be no way for them to escape from this time of trouble.

The Future King

The land of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali was once disgraced, but the future will bring honor to this region, from the Mediterranean eastward to the land on the other side of the Jordan, and even to Galilee itself, where the foreigners live.

²The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light.
They lived in a land of shadows,
but now light is shining on them.
³You have given them great joy, Lord;
you have made them happy.
They rejoice in what you have done,
as people rejoice when they harvest grain
or when they divide captured wealth.
⁴For you have broken the yoke that burdened them
and the rod that beat their shoulders.
You have defeated the nation
that oppressed and exploited your people,
just as you defeated the army of Midian long ago.
⁵The boots of the invading army
and all their bloodstained clothing
will be destroyed by fire.
⁶A child is born to us!
A son is given to us!
And he will be our ruler.
He will be called, "Wonderful Counselor,"
"Mighty God," "Eternal Father,"
"Prince of Peace."
⁷His royal power will continue to grow;
his kingdom will always be at peace.
He will rule as King David's successor,
basing his power on right and justice,
from now until the end of time.
The LORD Almighty is determined to do all this.

The LORD Will Punish Israel

⁸The Lord has pronounced judgment on the kingdom of Israel, on the descendants of Jacob. ⁹All the people of Israel, everyone who lives in the city of Samaria, will know that he has done this. Now they are proud and arrogant. They say, ¹⁰"The brick buildings have fallen down, but we will replace them with stone buildings. The beams of sycamore wood have been cut down, but we will replace them with the finest cedar."
¹¹The LORD has stirred up their enemies to attack them. ¹²Syria on the east and Philistia on the west have opened their mouths to devour Israel. Yet even so the LORD's anger is not ended; his hand is still stretched out to punish.
¹³The people of Israel have not repented; even though the LORD Almighty has punished them, they have not returned to him. ¹⁴In a single day the LORD will punish Israel's leaders and its people; he will cut them off, head and tail. ¹⁵The old and honorable men are the head--and the tail is the prophets whose teachings are lies! ¹⁶Those who lead these people have misled them and totally confused them. ¹⁷And so the Lord will not let any of the young men escape, and he will not show pity on any of the widows and orphans, because all the people are godless and wicked and everything they say is evil. Yet even so the LORD's anger will not be ended, but his hand will still be stretched out to punish.
¹⁸The wickedness of the people burns like a fire that destroys thorn bushes and thistles. It burns like a forest fire that sends up columns of smoke. ¹⁹Because the LORD Almighty is angry, his punishment burns like a fire throughout the land and destroys the people, and it is each of us for ourselves. ²⁰Everywhere in the country people snatch and eat any bit of food they can find, but their hunger is never satisfied. They even eat their own children! ²¹The people of Manasseh and the people of Ephraim attack each other, and together they attack Judah. Yet even so the LORD's anger is not ended; his hand is still stretched out to punish.
Isaiah 10 You are doomed! You make unjust laws that oppress my people. ²That is how you keep the poor from having their rights and from getting justice. That is how you take the property that belongs to widows and orphans. ³What will you do when God punishes you? What will you do when he brings disaster on you from a distant country? Where will you run to find help? Where will you hide your wealth? ⁴You will be killed in battle or dragged off as prisoners. Yet even so the LORD's anger will not be ended; his hand will still be stretched out to punish.

The Emperor of Assyria as the Instrument of God

⁵The LORD said, "Assyria! I use Assyria like a club to punish those with whom I am angry. ⁶I sent Assyria to attack a godless nation, people who have made me angry. I sent them to loot and steal and trample the people like dirt in the streets."
⁷But the Assyrian emperor has his own violent plans in mind. He is determined to destroy many nations. ⁸He boasts, "Every one of my commanders is a king! ⁹I conquered the cities of Calno and Carchemish, the cities of Hamath and Arpad. I conquered Samaria and Damascus. ¹⁰I reached out to punish those kingdoms that worship idols, idols more numerous than those of Jerusalem and Samaria. ¹¹I have destroyed Samaria and all its idols, and I will do the same to Jerusalem and the images that are worshiped there."
¹²But the Lord says, "When I finish what I am doing on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the emperor of Assyria for all his boasting and all his pride."
¹³The emperor of Assyria boasts, "I have done it all myself. I am strong and wise and clever. I wiped out the boundaries between nations and took the supplies they had stored. Like a bull I have trampled the people who live there. ¹⁴The nations of the world were like a bird's nest, and I gathered their wealth as easily as gathering eggs. Not a wing fluttered to scare me off; no beak opened to scream at me!"
¹⁵But the LORD says, "Can an ax claim to be greater than the one who uses it? Is a saw more important than the one who saws with it? A club doesn't lift up a person; a person lifts up a club."
¹⁶The LORD Almighty is going to send disease to punish those who are now well-fed. In their bodies there will be a fire that burns and burns. ¹⁷God, the light of Israel, will become a fire. Israel's holy God will become a flame, which in a single day will burn up everything, even the thorns and thistles. ¹⁸The rich forests and farmlands will be totally destroyed, in the same way that a fatal sickness destroys someone. ¹⁹There will be so few trees left that even a child will be able to count them.

A Few Will Come Back

²⁰A time is coming when the people of Israel who have survived will not rely any more on the nation that almost destroyed them. They will truly put their trust in the LORD, Israel's holy God. ²¹A few of the people of Israel will come back to their mighty God. ²²Even though now there are as many people of Israel as there are grains of sand by the sea, only a few will come back. Destruction is in store for the people, and it is fully deserved. ²³Yes, throughout the whole country the Sovereign LORD Almighty will bring destruction, as he said he would.

The LORD Will Punish Assyria

²⁴The Sovereign LORD Almighty says to his people who live in Zion, "Do not be afraid of the Assyrians, even though they oppress you as the Egyptians used to do. ²⁵In only a little while I will finish punishing you, and then I will destroy them. ²⁶I, the LORD Almighty, will beat them with my whip as I did the people of Midian at Oreb Rock. I will punish Assyria as I punished Egypt. ²⁷When that time comes, I will free you from the power of Assyria, and their yoke will no longer be a burden on your shoulders."

The Invader Attacks

²⁸The enemy army has captured the city of Ai! They have passed through Migron! They left their supplies at Michmash! ²⁹They have crossed the pass and are spending the night at Geba! The people in the town of Ramah are terrified, and the people in King Saul's hometown of Gibeah have run away. ³⁰Shout, people of Gallim! Listen, people of Laishah! Answer, people of Anathoth! ³¹The people of Madmenah and Gebim are running for their lives. ³²Today the enemy are in the town of Nob, and there they are shaking their fists at Mount Zion, at the city of Jerusalem.
³³The LORD Almighty will bring them crashing down like branches cut off a tree. The proudest and highest of them will be cut down and humiliated. ³⁴The LORD will cut them down as trees in the heart of the forest are cut down with an ax, as even the finest trees of Lebanon fall!

In Praise of the LORD

Psalm 111 Praise the LORD!

With all my heart I will thank the LORD
in the assembly of his people.
²How wonderful are the things the LORD does!
All who are delighted with them want to understand them.
³All he does is full of honor and majesty;
his righteousness is eternal.

⁴The LORD does not let us forget his wonderful actions;
he is kind and merciful.
⁵He provides food for those who honor him;
he never forgets his covenant.
⁶He has shown his power to his people
by giving them the lands of foreigners.

⁷In all he does he is faithful and just;
all his commands are dependable.
⁸They last for all time;
they were given in truth and righteousness.
⁹He set his people free
and made an eternal covenant with them.
Holy and mighty is he!
¹⁰The way to become wise is to honor the LORD;
he gives sound judgment to all who obey his commands.
He is to be praised forever.