Revelation 21:2

21:2 And I saw the holy city – the new Jerusalem – descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.

Revelation 22:19

22:19 And if anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life ¹  and in the holy city that are described in this book.

Isaiah 48:2

48:2 Indeed, they live in the holy city; ² 

they trust in ³  the God of Israel,

whose name is the Lord who commands armies.

Isaiah 52:1

52:1 Wake up! Wake up!

Clothe yourself with strength, O Zion!

Put on your beautiful clothes,

O Jerusalem, ⁴  holy city!

For uncircumcised and unclean pagans

will no longer invade you.

Matthew 4:5

4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, ⁵  had him stand ⁶  on the highest point ⁷  of the temple,

Matthew 27:53

27:53 (They ⁸  came out of the tombs after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.)

¹ tc The Textus Receptus, on which the KJV rests, reads “the book” of life (ἀπὸ βίβλου, apo biblou) instead of “the tree” of life. When the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus translated the NT he had access to no Greek mss for the last six verses of Revelation. So he translated the Latin Vulgate back into Greek at this point. As a result he created seventeen textual variants which were not in any Greek mss. The most notorious of these is this reading. It is thus decidedly inauthentic, while “the tree” of life, found in the best and virtually all Greek mss, is clearly authentic. The confusion was most likely due to an intra-Latin switch: The form of the word for “tree” in Latin in this passage is ligno; the word for “book” is libro. The two-letter difference accounts for an accidental alteration in some Latin mss; that “book of life” as well as “tree of life” is a common expression in the Apocalypse probably accounts for why this was not noticed by Erasmus or the KJV translators. (This textual problem is not discussed in NA²⁷.)

² tn Heb “they call themselves [or “are called”] from the holy city.” The precise meaning of the statement is uncertain. The Niphal of קָרָא (qara’) is combined with the preposition מִן (min) only here. When the Qal of קָרָא is used with מִן, the preposition often indicates the place from which one is summoned (see 46:11). So one could translate, “from the holy city they are summoned,” meaning that they reside there.

³ tn Heb “lean on” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “rely on.”

⁴ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁵ sn The order of the second and third temptations differs in Luke’s account (4:5-12) from the order given in Matthew.

⁶ tn Grk “and he stood him.”

⁷ sn The highest point of the temple probably refers to the point on the temple’s southeast corner where it looms directly over a cliff some 450 ft (135 m) high. However, some have suggested the reference could be to the temple’s high gate.

⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.