8870. 'Or any likeness' means a resemblance of those things which are from God. This is clear from the meaning of 'a likeness' as a resemblance. The fact that the resemblance is of those things which are from God is evident from what comes before and after. What comes before declares that there must be no other gods before Jehovah God's face, and that people must not make for themselves a graven image, meaning truths that spring from a source other than God yet are made to look like those from Him. And what comes after speaks of that which is in heaven, that which is on the earth, and that which is in the waters, meaning such things everywhere as are from God.

[2] How a resemblance of those things which are from God should be understood must be stated here, since they are the subject in the rest of the present verse and in the first part of the next. A resemblance of those things which are from God is produced when people speak God's truths with their lips and also perform the kinds of deeds which have been commanded by God, and in so doing lead others to believe that they are governed by what is good and true, when yet at heart they think in a completely different way, and are intent only on what is bad. Such people are pretenders, hypocrites, and deceivers. These are the ones who produce a resemblance of those things which are from God. In the next life evil spirits produce a resemblance of those things which are from God; they present a likeness and appearance in externals, which inwardly have nothing at all of God in them. Pretenders, hypocrites, and deceivers in the next life learn to behave in this way, as in general do all who by frequent practice have become habituated to saying one thing while thinking another, and to doing one thing while being intent on another. People who engage in such presences wish to earn a reputation, some in order that they may seem to be good, and so may mislead other people, others in order that they may exercise dominion.

[3] Such things there are also misuses of correspondences. But the externals by means of which they have performed deeds that simulate acts of charity and faith are gradually removed from them, and then the internals, which are wicked and horrid, are laid bare. For as a result of this those people are led to act out their true nature which they acquired in the world, and no longer some pretence or hypocrisy. When people like these realize that externals are to be taken away from them they say that if the externals were left with them they could mix with companions in the next life and seemingly perform good deeds just as well as when they had previously been in the world. But this is impossible. Their externals which are seemingly good would place them in contact in some way with heaven - that is to say, with those who are in the outskirts there and are simple, who correspond to skin in the Grand Man - while their internals would place them in contact with hell. And since the evil desires within predominate because they occupy the will, and the simulations of good deeds in externals serve to acquire dominion for the evil, it is contrary to Divine order to leave those people free to dissemble and act hypocritically as they did in the world. Therefore such things are taken away from them, and they are left to the evil itself present in the intentions of their will.