"You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering," the Lord said to the king of Tyre, "carnelian, topaz, and jasper, chrysolite, beryl, and onyx; sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald." But then, as the Lord goes on to explain, because the king fell from innocence into sin, "I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and the guardian cherub drove you out from the midst of the stones of fire" (Ezekiel 28:13,16).
One way or another, we have all fallen like the king. Yet we all also carry within us a memory of Eden. It is perhaps why jewels fascinate us so and why we value them above almost all things. In their starry depths we see glimmers of where we have come from and also of where, according to ancient prophecy, we are going: the city whose "walls are... chrysoprase... jacinth... amethyst... and the twelve gates... twelve pearls... and the street... gold" (Revelation 21:19-21).
~originally published in Wishful Thinking and later in Beyond Words
