Revelation 21:4
Revelation 21:44‘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.”
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 AFTER this verse's situation has supposedly arrived, which creates a chain problem the doctrine has to manage.
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 , 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.
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.