²² For example, wives should submit to their husbands as if to the Lord. ²³ A husband is the head of his wife like Christ is head of the church, that is, the savior of the body. ²⁴ So wives submit to their husbands in everything like the church submits to Christ. ²⁵ As for husbands, love your wives just like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. ²⁶ He did this to make her holy by washing her in a bath of water with the word. ²⁷ He did this to present himself with a splendid church, one without any sort of stain or wrinkle on her clothes, but rather one that is holy and blameless. ²⁸ That’s how husbands ought to love their wives—in the same way as they do their own bodies. Anyone who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ No one ever hates his own body, but feeds it and takes care of it just like Christ does for the church ³⁰ because we are parts of his body. ³¹ This is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two of them will be one body.^{[a] 32} Marriage is a significant allegory,^[b] and I’m applying it to Christ and the church. ³³ In any case, as for you individually, each one of you should love his wife as himself, and wives should respect^[c] their husbands.

⁶ And I heard something that sounded like a huge crowd, like rushing water and powerful thunder. They said,

⁹ Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Favored are those who have been invited to the wedding banquet of the Lamb.” He said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

New Jerusalem

⁹ Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues spoke with me. “Come,” he said, “I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” ¹⁰ He took me in a Spirit-inspired trance to a great, high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. ¹¹ The city had God’s glory. Its brilliance was like a priceless jewel, like jasper that was as clear as crystal. ¹² It had a great high wall with twelve gates. By the gates were twelve angels, and on the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel’s sons. ¹³ There were three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. ¹⁴ The city wall had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the Lamb’s twelve apostles.

¹⁵ The angel who spoke to me had a gold measuring rod with which to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. ¹⁶ Now the city was laid out as a square. Its length was the same as its width. He measured the city with the rod, and it was fifteen hundred miles.^[a] Its length and width and height were equal. ¹⁷ He also measured the thickness of its wall. It was two hundred sixteen feet^[b] thick, as a person—or rather, an angel—measures things. ¹⁸ The wall was built of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like pure glass. ¹⁹ The city wall’s foundations were decorated with every kind of jewel. The first foundation was jasper, the second was sapphire, the third was chalcedony, and the fourth was emerald. ²⁰ The fifth was sardonyx, the sixth was carnelian, the seventh was chrysolite, and the eighth was beryl. The ninth was topaz, the tenth was chrysoprase, the eleventh was jacinth, and the twelfth was amethyst. ²¹ The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was made from a single pearl. And the city’s main street was pure gold, as transparent as glass.

²² I didn’t see a temple in the city, because its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. ²³ The city doesn’t need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because God’s glory is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. ²⁴ The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. ²⁵ Its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. ²⁶ They will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. ²⁷ Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is vile and deceitful, but only those who are registered in the Lamb’s scroll of life.