58 Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast; tell my people of their sins! ² Yet they act so pious! They come to the Temple every day and are so delighted to hear the reading of my laws—just as though they would obey them—just as though they don’t despise the commandments of their God! How anxious they are to worship correctly; oh, how they love the Temple services!

³ “We have fasted before you,” they say. “Why aren’t you impressed? Why don’t you see our sacrifices? Why don’t you hear our prayers? We have done much penance, and you don’t even notice it!” I’ll tell you why! Because you are living in evil pleasure even while you are fasting, and you keep right on oppressing your workers. ⁴ Look, what good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling? This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me. ⁵ Is this what I want—this doing of penance and bowing like reeds in the wind, putting on sackcloth and covering yourselves with ashes? Is this what you call fasting?

⁶ No, the kind of fast I want is that you stop oppressing those who work for you and treat them fairly and give them what they earn. ⁷ I want you to share your food with the hungry and bring right into your own homes those who are helpless, poor, and destitute. Clothe those who are cold, and don’t hide from relatives who need your help.

⁸ If you do these things, God will shed his own glorious light upon you. He will heal you; your godliness will lead you forward, goodness will be a shield before you, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. ⁹ Then, when you call, the Lord will answer. “Yes, I am here,” he will quickly reply. All you need to do is to stop oppressing the weak and stop making false accusations and spreading vicious rumors!

¹⁰ Feed the hungry! Help those in trouble! Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you shall be as bright as day. ¹¹ And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy you with all good things, and keep you healthy too; and you will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring. ¹² Your sons will rebuild the long-deserted ruins of your cities, and you will be known as “The People Who Rebuild Their Walls and Cities.”

¹³ If you keep the Sabbath holy, not having your own fun and business on that day, but enjoying the Sabbath, speaking of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day, and honoring the Lord in what you do, not following your own desires and pleasure nor talking idly— ¹⁴ then the Lord will be your delight, and I will see to it that you ride high and get your full share of the blessings I promised to Jacob, your father. The Lord has spoken.

21 Then I saw a new earth (with no oceans!) and a new sky, for the present earth and sky had disappeared. ² And I, John, saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. It was a glorious sight, beautiful as a bride at her wedding.

³ I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, “Look, the home of God is now among men, and he will live with them and they will be his people; yes, God himself will be among them.^{[a] 4} He will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. All of that has gone forever.”

⁵ And the one sitting on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true: ⁶ It is finished! I am the A and the Z—the Beginning and the End. I will give to the thirsty the springs of the Water of Life—as a gift! ⁷ Everyone who conquers will inherit all these blessings, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ⁸ But cowards who turn back from following me, and those who are unfaithful to me, and the corrupt, and murderers, and the immoral, and those conversing with demons, and idol worshipers and all liars—their doom is in the Lake that burns with fire and sulphur. This is the Second Death.”

⁹ Then 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.”

¹⁰ In 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. ¹¹ It was filled with the glory of God and flashed and glowed like a precious gem, crystal clear like jasper. ¹² Its 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. ¹³ There were three gates on each side—north, south, east, and west. ¹⁴ The walls had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

¹⁵ The angel held in his hand a golden measuring stick to measure the city and its gates and walls. ¹⁶ When 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. ¹⁷ Then 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).^[b]

^18-20 The 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^[c] 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.

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

²² No temple could be seen in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are worshiped in it everywhere.^{[d] 23} And the city has no need of sun or moon to light it, for the glory of God and of the Lamb illuminate it. ²⁴ Its light will light the nations of the earth, and the rulers of the world will come and bring their glory to it. ²⁵ Its gates never close; they stay open all day long—and there is no night! ²⁶ And the glory and honor of all the nations shall be brought into it. ²⁷ Nothing evil will be permitted in it—no one immoral or dishonest—but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.