534. People who do not examine themselves are like people with a sickness that closes off their capillaries and therefore corrupts their blood, causing their limbs to go to sleep and atrophy, and resulting in severe chronic diseases because their humors, and therefore the blood that arises from them, are viscous, sticky, irritating, and acidic. People who do examine themselves, however, including the intentions of their will, are like people who are healed from these diseases and regain the vitality they felt when they were young.

People who examine themselves in the right way are like ships from Ophir completely filled with gold, silver, and precious stones; before they examined themselves, though, they were like barges loaded down with unclean freight, carting away the filth and excrement from city streets.

People who examine themselves deeply become like mines, whose walls all shine with ores of precious metals; before they do so, however, they are like foul-smelling swamps inhabited by serpents and poisonous snakes with glittering scales, and harmful insects with shiny wings.

People who do not examine themselves are like the dry bones in the valley; but after people have explored themselves they become like those same bones after the Lord Jehovih put sinews on them, brought flesh upon them, covered them with skin, and breathed spirit into them, and they came to life (Ezekiel 37:1-14).