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Daniel 9

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1 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldaeans;

2 In the first year of his rule, I, Daniel, saw clearly from the books the number of years given by the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah, in which the making waste of Jerusalem was to be complete, that is, seventy years.

3 And turning my face to the Lord God, I gave myself up to prayer, requesting his grace, going without food, in haircloth and dust.

4 And I made prayer to the Lord my God, putting our sins before him, and said, O Lord, the great God, greatly to be feared. keeping your agreement and mercy with those who have love for you and do your orders;

5 We are sinners, acting wrongly and doing evil; we have gone against you, turning away from your orders and from your laws:

6 We have not given ear to your servants the prophets, who said words in your name to our kings and our rulers and our fathers and all the people of the land.

7 O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you.

8 O Lord, shame is on us, on our kings and our rulers and our fathers, because of our sin against you.

9 With the Lord our God are mercies and forgiveness, for we have gone against him;

10 And have not given ear to the voice of the Lord our God to go in the way of his laws which he put before us by the mouth of his servants the prophets.

11 And all Israel have been sinners against your law, turning away so as not to give ear to your voice: and the curse has been let loose on us, and the oath recorded in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have done evil against him.

12 And he has given effect to his words which he said against us and against those who were our judges, by sending a great evil on us: for under all heaven there has not been done what has been done to Jerusalem.

13 As it was recorded in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: but we have made no prayer for grace from the Lord our God that we might be turned from our evil doings and come to true wisdom.

14 So the Lord has been watching over this evil and has made it come on us: for the Lord our God is upright in all his acts which he has done, and we have not given ear to his voice.

15 And now, O Lord our God, who took your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made a great name for yourself even to this day; we are sinners, we have done evil.

16 O Lord, because of your righteousness, let your wrath and your passion be turned away from your town Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because, through our sins and the evil-doing of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a cause of shame to all who are round about us.

17 And now, give ear, O our God, to the prayer of your servant and to his request for grace, and let your face be shining on your holy place which is made waste, because of your servants, O Lord.

18 O my God, let your ear be turned and give hearing; let your eyes be open and see how we have been made waste and the town which is named by your name: for we are not offering our prayers before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercies.

19 O Lord, give ear; O Lord, have forgiveness; O Lord, take note and do; let there be no more waiting; for the honour of your name, O my God, because your town and your people are named by your name.

20 And while I was still saying these words in prayer, and putting my sins and the sins of my people Israel before the Lord, and requesting grace from the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God;

21 Even while I was still in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at first when my weariness was great, put his hand on me about the time of the evening offering.

22 And teaching me and talking to me he said, O Daniel, I have come now to give you wisdom.

23 At the first word of your prayer a word went out, and I have come to give you knowledge; for you are a man dearly loved: so give thought to the word and let the vision be clear to you.

24 Seventy weeks have been fixed for your people and your holy town, to let wrongdoing be complete and sin come to its full limit, and for the clearing away of evil-doing and the coming in of eternal righteousness: so that the vision and the word of the prophet may be stamped as true, and to put the holy oil on a most holy place.

25 Have then the certain knowledge that from the going out of the word for the building again of Jerusalem till the coming of a prince, on whom the holy oil has been put, will be seven weeks: in sixty-two weeks its building will be complete, with square and earthwork.

26 And at the end of the times, even after the sixty-two weeks, one on whom the holy oil has been put will be cut off and have no ...; and the town and the holy place will be made waste together with a prince; and the end will come with an overflowing of waters, and even to the end there will be war; the making waste which has been fixed.

27 And a strong order will be sent out against the great number for one week; and so for half of the week the offering and the meal offering will come to an end; and in its place will be an unclean thing causing fear; till the destruction which has been fixed is let loose on him who has made waste.

   

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True Christian Religion # 851

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851. I foresee that many readers of the accounts of experiences which come at the end of the chapters will think that they are fictions of the imagination. But I declare in truth that they are no fictions, but things I have truly seen and heard; and not things seen and heard in some state of mental somnolence, but in full wakefulness. For it has pleased the Lord to show Himself to me, and to send me to teach the doctrines of His new church, which is meant by the New Jerusalem in Revelation. For this purpose He opened the interiors of my mind or spirit, thus allowing me to be with angels in the spiritual world and at the same time with people in the natural world; and this has continued now for twenty-seven years.

Would anyone in the Christian world have known anything about heaven and hell if it had not been the Lord's pleasure to open the sight of someone's spirit, and show and teach him?

[2] It is quite plain that things of the kind described in the accounts of experiences are to be seen in the heavens from the similar things seen and described by John in Revelation, as well as those seen and described by the prophets in the Old Testament Word.

Examples in Revelation are: his seeing the Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands; seeing a tabernacle, a temple, an ark and an altar in heaven; the book sealed with seven seals and its opening, and the horses coming out of it; the four creatures around the throne; the twelve thousand chosen from each tribe; the locusts coming up out of the abyss; the woman giving birth to a male child, and fleeing into the desert because of the dragon; the two beasts coming up, one from the sea and one from the land; the angel flying in mid-heaven holding the everlasting gospel; the sea of glass mixed with fire; the seven angels having the seven last plagues; the bowls which they poured out on the earth, the sea, the rivers, the sun, the throne of the beast, the Euphrates and the air; the woman seated upon the scarlet beast; the dragon cast out into a lake of fire and brimstone; the white horse; the great dinner; the new heaven and the new earth; the holy Jerusalem coming down from heaven, with the description of its gates, its wall and the foundations of the wall; also the river of the water of life, and the trees of life which bear fruit every month; and many things besides which were all seen by John, while he was in his spirit in the spiritual world and in heaven.

There are also the things seen by the Apostles after the Lord's resurrection, as well as those seen by Peter (Acts 11) and seen and heard by Paul. There are too the experiences of the Old Testament prophets. For instance, Ezekiel saw four creatures, which were the Cherubim (Ezekiel 1, 10); a new temple and a new earth, and an angel measuring them (Ezekiel 40 to Ezekiel 48); he was carried away to Jerusalem and saw abominations there, and also to Chaldaea (Ezekiel 8, 11).

[3] Likewise it happened to Zechariah to see a man riding a horse among the myrtles (Zechariah 1:8-11); four horns, and then a man with a measuring line in his hand (Zechariah 2); a flying scroll and an ephah (Zechariah 5:6); four chariots between the two mountains, and their horses (Daniel 7:1-8; 7:13-14); the battles of the ram and the he-goat (Daniel 8; 9). Likewise Elisha's lad saw chariots and horses of fire around Elisha, and he saw them when his eyes had been opened (2 Kings 6:17).

From these and many other passages in the Word it is established that the things which come into existence in the spiritual world have been seen by many people before and after the Lord's coming. What is surprising then if it happens when a new church is beginning, or the New Jerusalem is coming down from heaven?

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

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Acts of the Apostles 11

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1 Now the apostles and the brothers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.

2 When Peter had come up to Jerusalem, those who were of the circumcision contended with him,

3 saying, "You went in to uncircumcised men, and ate with them!"

4 But Peter began, and explained to them in order, saying,

5 "I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision: a certain container descending, like it was a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners. It came as far as me.

6 When I had looked intently at it, I considered, and saw the four-footed animals of the earth, wild animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky.

7 I also heard a voice saying to me, 'Rise, Peter, kill and eat!'

8 But I said, 'Not so, Lord, for nothing unholy or unclean has ever entered into my mouth.'

9 But a voice answered me the second time out of heaven, 'What God has cleansed, don't you call unclean.'

10 This was done three times, and all were drawn up again into heaven.

11 Behold, immediately three men stood before the house where I was, having been sent from Caesarea to me.

12 The Spirit told me to go with them, without discriminating. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered into the man's house.

13 He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house, and saying to him, 'Send to Joppa, and get Simon, whose surname is Peter,

14 who will speak to you words by which you will be saved, you and all your house.'

15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.

16 I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, 'John indeed baptized in water, but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit.'

17 If then God gave to them the same gift as us, when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I could withstand God?"

18 When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, "Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life!"

19 They therefore who were scattered abroad by the oppression that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews only.

20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus.

21 The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

22 The report concerning them came to the ears of the assembly which was in Jerusalem. They sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch,

23 who, when he had come, and had seen the grace of God, was glad. He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they should remain near to the Lord.

24 For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and many people were added to the Lord.

25 Barnabas went out to Tarsus to look for Saul.

26 When he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. It happened, that for a whole year they were gathered together with the assembly, and taught many people. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

27 Now in these days, prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

28 One of them named Agabus stood up, and indicated by the Spirit that there should be a great famine all over the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius.

29 As any of the disciples had plenty, each determined to send relief to the brothers who lived in Judea;

30 which they also did, sending it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.