Tobit 13:17

These seven circles of the Sons are concentric and successively elevated so that each of the outer and larger circles overlooks the inner and smaller ones, each being surrounded by a public promenade wall. These walls are constructed of crystal gems of gleaming brightness and are so elevated as to overlook all of their respective residential circles. The many gates — from fifty to one hundred and fifty thousand — which penetrate each of these walls consist of single pearly crystals.

Jerusem has great buildings of both material and morontia types, while the embellishment of the purely spiritual zones is no less exquisite and replete. If I only had words to tell you of the morontia counterparts of the marvelous physical equipment of Jerusem! If I could only go on to portray the sublime grandeur and exquisite perfection of the spiritual appointments of this headquarters world! Your most imaginative concept of perfection of beauty and repleteness of appointment would hardly approach these grandeurs. And Jerusem is but the first step on the way to the supernal perfection of Paradise beauty.

Jerusem is indeed a foretaste of paradisiacal glory and grandeur. But you can never hope to gain an adequate idea of these glorious architectural worlds by any attempted description. There is so little that can be compared with aught on your world, and even then the things of Jerusem so transcend the things of Urantia that the comparison is almost grotesque. Until you actually arrive on Jerusem, you can hardly entertain anything like a true concept of the heavenly worlds, but that is not so long a time in the future when your coming experience on the system capital is compared with your sometime arrival on the more remote training spheres of the universe, the superuniverse, and Havona.

By the fourth and last day’s journey the road was a continuous procession of pilgrims. They now began to climb the hills leading up to Jerusalem. As they neared the top, they could look across the Jordan to the mountains beyond and south over the sluggish waters of the Dead Sea. About halfway up to Jerusalem, Jesus gained his first view of the Mount of Olives (the region to be so much a part of his subsequent life), and Joseph pointed out to him that the Holy City lay just beyond this ridge, and the lad’s heart beat fast with joyous anticipation of soon beholding the city and house of his heavenly Father.

On Jerusem you will miss the rugged mountain ranges of Urantia and other evolved worlds since there are neither earthquakes nor rainfalls, but you will enjoy the beauteous highlands and other unique variations of topography and landscape. Enormous areas of Jerusem are preserved in a “natural state,” and the grandeur of such districts is quite beyond the powers of human imagination.

Jesus was lighthearted and cheerful as they moved along until he came to the brow of Olivet, where the city and the temple towers came into full view; there the Master stopped the procession, and a great silence came upon all as they beheld him weeping. Looking down upon the vast multitude coming forth from the city to greet him, the Master, with much emotion and with tearful voice, said: “O Jerusalem, if you had only known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your peace, and which you could so freely have had! But now are these glories about to be hid from your eyes. You are about to reject the Son of Peace and turn your backs upon the gospel of salvation. The days will soon come upon you wherein your enemies will cast a trench around about you and lay siege to you on every side; they shall utterly destroy you, insomuch that not one stone shall be left upon another. And all this shall befall you because you knew not the time of your divine visitation. You are about to reject the gift of God, and all men will reject you.”

Many of the great highways joining the nations of antiquity passed through Palestine, which thus became the meeting place, or crossroads, of three continents. The travel, trade, and armies of Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Parthia, and Rome successively swept over Palestine. From time immemorial, many caravan routes from the Orient passed through some part of this region to the few good seaports of the eastern end of the Mediterranean, whence ships carried their cargoes to all the maritime Occident. And more than half of this caravan traffic passed through or near the little town of Nazareth in Galilee.

In silence they started out, arriving at Jericho for the night. Only once did they pause, and that on the brow of Olivet, when the lad raised his staff aloft and, quivering from head to foot under the surging of intense emotion, said: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, and the people thereof, what slaves you are — subservient to the Roman yoke and victims of your own traditions — but I will return to cleanse yonder temple and deliver my people from this bondage!”

The mountains surrounding the Garden abounded in precious stones and metals, though these received very little attention. The dominant idea was to be the glorification of horticulture and the exaltation of agriculture.

These seven circles are surrounded by the exhibit panorama of Jerusem, five thousand standard miles in circumference, which is devoted to the presentation of the advancing status of the peopled worlds of Satania and is constantly revised so as to truly represent up-to-date conditions on the individual planets. I doubt not that this vast promenade overlooking the circles of the angels will be the first sight of Jerusem to claim your attention when you are permitted extended leisure on your earlier visits.