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Exodus 34

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1 And Jehovah said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables, which thou brakest.

2 And be ready by the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me on the top of the mount.

3 And no man shall come up with thee; neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.

4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone.

5 And Jehovah descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah.

6 And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth,

7 keeping lovingkindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation.

8 And Moses made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.

9 And he said, If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.

10 And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of Jehovah; for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee.

11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:

13 but ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and ye shall cut down their Asherim;

14 for thou shalt worship no other god: for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

15 lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot after their gods, and sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee and thou eat of his sacrifice;

16 and thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods, and make thy sons play the harlot after their gods.

17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

18 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed in the month Abib; for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.

19 All that openeth the womb is mine; and all thy cattle that is male, the firstlings of cow and sheep.

20 And the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. All the first-born of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, [even] of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.

23 Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel.

24 For I will cast out nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou goest up to appear before Jehovah thy God three times in the year.

25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

26 The first of the first-fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

27 And Jehovah said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

28 And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

29 And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses knew not that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.

30 And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.

31 And Moses called unto them; and Aaron and all the rulers of the congregation returned unto him: and Moses spake to them.

32 And afterward all the children of Israel came nigh: and he gave them in commandment all that Jehovah had spoken with him in mount Sinai.

33 And when Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face.

34 But when Moses went in before Jehovah to speak with him, he took the veil off, until he came out; and he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded.

35 And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

   

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Exodus 23:24

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24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.

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Arcana Coelestia # 7038

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7038. 'And let him serve Me' means being raised into heaven to perform useful services from there. This is clear from the meaning of 'serving Jehovah (or the Lord)' as performing useful services; and being raised into heaven, to perform useful services from there is meant by 'they shall serve Me' for the following reason: Those who belong to the spiritual Church and have been saved by the Lord's Coming are the subject, in particular those who were on the lower earth before the Lord's Coming but were later raised into heaven, 6854, 6914, and therefore came into a state in which they performed useful services. The reason why performing useful services is meant by 'serving the Lord' is that true worship consists in the performance of such services, thus in the exercise of charity. Anyone who thinks that serving the Lord consists solely in going to church regularly, listening to the preaching there, and saying his prayers, and that that is sufficient, is much mistaken. True worship of the Lord consists in performing useful services; and such services during a person's life in the world lie in a proper fulfillment of his function by each person, whatever his own position, that is, in serving his country, its communities, and his neighbour with all his heart. They also lie in honest dealings with fellow human beings and in the diligent discharge of duties, with full regard for each person's character. These useful deeds are the principal ways of exercising charity and the principal means of worshipping the Lord. Going to church regularly, listening to sermons, and saying one's prayers are also necessary; but without the useful deeds they have no value at all, for they do not constitute a person's life but teach what that life ought to be like. The angels in heaven get nothing but happiness out of being useful; and they receive it in proportion to their usefulness. So true is this that to them usefulness is what makes heaven.

[2] It is in keeping with Divine order that usefulness should determine the measure of happiness, as may be recognized from the different aspects of a person and the things they correspond to in the Grand Man, such as the external senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch - which, as shown at the ends of quite a number of chapters, correspond in that way. Associated with these senses therefore are delights, which are determined completely by the functions they perform. The greatest is the sensory delight associated with conjugial love, because of the very great use it performs, for it leads to the propagation of the human race, which populates heaven. After this comes the delight linked with taste, which possesses so great a delight because it helps to nourish the body and keep it healthy, on which healthy mental activity depends. The delight linked with smell is a lesser delight because it serves merely to reinvigorate and so also help to keep a person healthy. The delight associated with hearing and that associated with sight come in last place because they only receive impressions which will be of future usefulness, and because they serve the understanding part of the mind but not so much the will part.

[3] From these and other considerations like them it becomes evident that useful services are the determining factor in the happiness imparted by the Lord in heaven, and that those services are the chief way in which the Lord is worshipped. This goes to explain why John reclined at table on the Lord's breast, and why the Lord loved him more than the rest. It was not on account of John himself, but because he represented times when charity is exercised, that is, useful services are performed. Regarding John's representation of those things, see the Prefaces to Chapters 18, 22 of Genesis, and 3974.

7038a 'And [if] you refuse to send him away' means obstinacy right to the last. This is clear from the meaning of 'refusing to send him away' as a failing to set free owing to obstinate determination, as above in 7032.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.