I've been programming Java for 2 years now, and I have encountered a problem where I couldn't understand and differentiate class, reference, and an object.

I am not sure if a class or reference are the same, though I have an idea of what an object is.

Can someone differentiate in a complete manner what classes, references, and objects are?

All I know is that a class is more like a template for an object (blueprint to a house where the class is the blueprint and the house is an object).