At face value, the Ten Commandments can seem intense and unforgiving. But Emanuel Swedenborg’s understanding of the internal sense of the Bible—spiritual meanings that lie beneath the literal words—can give us a new perspective on these familiar rules.

In this episode of their Swedenborg and Life web series, hosts Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose study the inner meaning of the first commandment.

(References: Apocalypse Revealed 950; Arcana Coelestia 8864, 8865, 8868, 8869, 8875, 8878, 8879, 8880, 8881)

9. On those whose aim in marriage is lasciviousness such as exists in adultery

I saw some women in a sort of kitchen, which contained a dark chimney without a fire in the hearth, with butcher's knives in their hands, with which they seemed to want to murder babies. They were deceitful, sly and malicious, all prostitutes, secretly alluring men from all sides. When they were inspected by angels they appeared like two globes full of intestines; one was foully bloody, the other was an ugly yellow. This was the representation of their lusts when inspected by angels. They were all the sort of women who enter into matrimony only for the sake of committing adultery with others, because then they are not afraid of losing their reputations by having an illegitimate child, which they attribute to the husband. Their lot is very hard; everything there is filthy; they live in caves, and are afraid of being seen on account of their ugliness and deformity; nor can they any longer entice any adulterer, because they are ugly and have a fetid stench. Men, however, whose aim in marriage was adultery, and who subsequently lived with adulteresses, form such a distaste for their wives that they run away from them. They eventually become impotent and their thought and speech become lifeless in the company of wives, and each one especially in the company of his own wife.