Amethyst

Amethyst is a violet quartz and features several times in scripture, including the High Priest’s breastplate and the foundations of New Jerusalem. It is now considered semiprecious rather than precious (like diamond, sapphire, ruby, and emerald) on account of gigantic deposits found in Brazil in the eighteenth century which rendered it more common and therefore less expensive. So when Moses and John put pen to paper, they spoke of something that would decline in value as the centuries wore on, but was rare and precious in their own day.

The same happened to godliness, virtue, kindness, righteousness, marriage, obedience, compassion: sinful hearts do not value such things, and their worth is reckoned slight in this fading world. But in the one to come, such things will be large, precious and plentiful, like amethyst.

And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst… Revelation 21:19-20

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