What, then, is going to be made new? Not the planet earth, though it will be renewed in the sense of being beautified, its present waste and polluted places being cleansed and refreshed. The creating of a new earth will mean a renewed human society. The ‘old earth’ of corrupt practices, disease and death will ‘pass away.’ However, not all the people will pass off the scene.​—1 John 2:17.

Jesus Christ is authority for this view of matters, for he said: “Just as it occurred in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of man: they were eating, they were drinking, men were marrying . . . until that day when Noah entered into the ark, and the flood arrived and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:26, 27) The earth was cleansed, primarily in the sense that the corrupt, violent world of people was destroyed off it. However, those who turned to God and made over their minds to his way were preserved, to live on this side of that great destructive deluge.​—1 Pet. 3:20.

All men are equal before God, and so it goes contrary to human nature for a person to dominate another. That is why the present human society that we see existing today​—called in the Bible the “earth”—​must pass away, to be replaced by a “new earth” of righteous human society under the Kingdom of the heavens.​—Rev. 21:1.