---
title: Revelation 21:4
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-21-4/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-21-4.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Revelation 21:4
testament: NT
section: Prophecy
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Revelation 21:4

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> ‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): "And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more"
- NWT (2013 revision): "And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore"

## JW Usage

Revelation 21:4 is one of the most-cited verses in JW publications and one of the centrepieces of the doorstep pitch. The promise of "no more death," "no more mourning," "no more pain" anchors the paradise-earth hope. JWs read the verse as a description of conditions on the renewed earth after Armageddon and through the thousand-year reign — though the Watchtower's wider eschatology then inserts the post-millennial test of Revelation 20:7-15 AFTER this verse's situation has supposedly arrived, which creates a chain problem the doctrine has to manage.

## Protestant Usage

John pairs the wiping away of every tear with the comprehensive end of death, mourning, outcry, and pain — "the former things have passed away." The verse describes the new creation after the great white throne judgment of Revelation 20:11-15, where Death and Hades have been thrown into the lake of fire. The order matters: judgment, then no more death. This is Paul's chain in reverse from 1 Cor 15:24-28 — death falls last, and only then does the new creation arrive. The Watchtower's post-millennial test cannot be inserted between Rev 20 and Rev 21:4 without breaking the order both Paul and John establish: if death is still operating in the rebel fire of Rev 20:9, then v.4's "death will be no more" has not yet arrived — but the Watchtower's timeline already has Adamic death undone before the rebellion. The chain refuses both readings.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders exaleipsei as "wipe out every tear" — slightly stronger than the consensus "wipe away every tear" (ESV, NASB, NIV, KJV). The Greek verb means "wipe away" or "erase"; "wipe out" carries a faintly exterminationist English colour the Greek does not quite warrant. The shift is mild and not doctrinally decisive. Standard NWT renderings appear elsewhere — "outcry" for kraugē (defensible, vs. "crying"). The doctrinal substance of the verse — God's comprehensive end of death and sorrow in the new creation — is preserved.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Last Enemy Is Death — and It's Last for a Reason](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/last-enemy-death-subjection-chain.md) — 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 / Revelation 20:7-15 — the chain Paul will not let break [Eschatology]