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Leviticus 26

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1 Do not make images of false gods, or put up an image cut in stone or a pillar or any pictured stone in your land, to give worship to it; for I am the Lord your God.

2 Keep my Sabbaths and give honour to my holy place: I am the Lord.

3 If you are guided by my rules, and keep my laws and do them,

4 Then I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will give her increase and the trees of the field will give their fruit;

5 And the crushing of the grain will overtake the cutting of the grapes, and the cutting of the grapes will overtake the planting of the seed, and there will be bread in full measure, and you will be living in your land safely.

6 And I will give you peace in the land, and you will take your rest and no one will give you cause for fear; and I will put an end to all evil beasts in the land, and no sword of war will go through your land.

7 And you will put to flight those who are against you, and they will be put to death by your swords.

8 Then five of you will put to flight a hundred, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, and all who are against you will be put to death by your swords.

9 And I will have pleasure in you and make you fertile and greater in number; and I will keep my agreement with you.

10 And old stores long kept will be your food, and you will take out the old because of the new;

11 And I will put my holy House among you, and my soul will not be turned away from you in disgust.

12 And I will be present among you and will be your God and you will be my people.

13 I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt so that you might not be servants to them; by me the cords of your yoke were broken and I made you go upright.

14 But if you do not give ear to me, and do not keep all these my laws;

15 And if you go against my rules and if you have hate in your souls for my decisions and you do not do all my orders, but go against my agreement;

16 This will I do to you: I will put fear in your hearts, even wasting disease and burning pain, drying up the eyes and making the soul feeble, and you will get no profit from your seed, for your haters will take it for food.

17 And my face will be turned from you, and you will be broken before those who are against you, and your haters will become your rulers, and you will go in flight when no man comes after you.

18 And if, even after these things, you will not give ear to me, then I will send you punishment seven times more for your sins.

19 And the pride of your strength will be broken, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass;

20 And your strength will be used up without profit; for your land will not give her increase and the trees of the field will not give their fruit.

21 And if you still go against me and will not give ear to me, I will put seven times more punishments on you because of your sins.

22 I will let loose the beasts of the field among you, and they will take away your children and send destruction on your cattle, so that your numbers will become small and your roads become waste.

23 And if by these things you will not be turned to me, but still go against me;

24 Then I will go against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for all your sins.

25 And I will send a sword on you to give effect to the punishment of my agreement; and when you come together into your towns I will send disease among you and you will be given up into the hands of your haters.

26 When I take away your bread of life, ten women will be cooking bread in one oven, and your bread will be measured out by weight; you will have food but never enough.

27 And if, after all this, you do not give ear to me, but go against me still,

28 Then my wrath will be burning against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for your sins.

29 Then you will take the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters for food;

30 And I will send destruction on your high places, overturning your perfume altars, and will put your dead bodies on your broken images, and my soul will be turned from you in disgust.

31 And I will make your towns waste and send destruction on your holy places; I will take no pleasure in the smell of your sweet perfumes;

32 And I will make your land a waste, a wonder to your haters living in it.

33 And I will send you out in all directions among the nations, and my sword will be uncovered against you, and your land will be without any living thing, and your towns will be made waste.

34 Then will the land take pleasure in its Sabbaths while it is waste and you are living in the land of your haters; then will the land have rest.

35 All the days while it is waste will the land have rest, such rest as it never had in your Sabbaths, when you were living in it.

36 And as for the rest of you, I will make their hearts feeble in the land of their haters, and the sound of a leaf moved by the wind will send them in flight, and they will go in flight as from the sword, falling down when no one comes after them;

37 Falling on one another, as before the sword, when no one comes after them; you will give way before your haters.

38 And death will overtake you among strange nations, and the land of your haters will be your destruction.

39 And those of you who are still living will be wasting away in their sins in the land of your haters; in the sins of their fathers they will be wasting away.

40 And they will have grief for their sins and for the sins of their fathers, when their hearts were untrue to me, and they went against me;

41 So that I went against them and sent them away into the land of their haters: if then the pride of their hearts is broken and they take the punishment of their sins,

42 Then I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will keep in mind the land.

43 And the land, while she is without them, will keep her Sabbaths; and they will undergo the punishment of their sins, because they were turned away from my decisions and in their souls was hate for my laws.

44 But for all that, when they are in the land of their haters I will not let them go, or be turned away from them, or give them up completely; my agreement with them will not be broken, for I am the Lord their God.

45 And because of them I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with their fathers, whom I took out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord.

46 These are the rules, decisions, and laws, which the Lord made between himself and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 7102

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7102. Lest He fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword. That this signifies to avoid the damnation of evil and falsity, is evident from the signification of “lest He fall upon us,” as being lest they should incur damnation; from the signification of “pestilence,” as being the damnation of evil (of which below); and from the signification of “the sword,” as being the vastation of truth, and also the punishment of falsity (see n. 2799), thus also damnation, for the punishment of falsity when truth is devastated, is damnation.

[2] Mention is made in the Word of four kinds of vastations and punishments; namely, the Sword, Famine, the Evil Beast, and Pestilence; and by the “sword” is signified the vastation of truth and the punishment of falsity; by “famine,” the vastation of good and the punishment of evil; by the “evil beast,” the punishment of the evil from falsity; by “pestilence,” the punishment of the evil not from falsity but from evil. And as punishment is signified, damnation is also signified, for this is the punishment of those who persevere in evil. Of these four kinds of punishments it is thus written in Ezekiel:

When I send upon Jerusalem My four evil judgments, the sword, and the famine, and the evil beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast (Ezekiel 14:21).

Again:

I will send upon you famine, and the evil beast, and will make thee bereaved; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; especially will I bring the sword upon thee (Ezekiel 5:17).

[3] That by “pestilence” is signified the punishment of evil, and its damnation, is evident from the following passages.

In Ezekiel:

They who are in the waste places shall die by the sword, and he who is upon the faces of the field I will give to the wild beast to devour him, and they who are in the strongholds and caverns shall die with the pestilence (Ezekiel 33:27);

“to die by the sword in waste places” denotes to be in the vastation of truth, and thence in the damnation of falsity; “he who is upon the faces of the field being given to the wild beast to devour” denotes the damnation of those who are in evil from falsity; “they who are in strongholds and caverns dying with the pestilence” denotes the damnation of evil which fortifies itself by falsity.

[4] Again:

The sword is without, and the pestilence and famine within; he that is in the field shall die by the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him (Ezekiel 7:15).

The “sword” here denotes the vastation of truth and the damnation of falsity; “famine and pestilence,” the vastation of good and the damnation of evil. The sword is said to be “without,” and famine and pestilence “within,” because the vastation of truth is without, but the vastation of good within; but when a man lives in accordance with falsity, damnation is signified by “him who is in the field dying by the sword;” and when he lives in evil which is defended by falsity, damnation is signified by “famine and pestilence devouring him who is in the city.”

[5] In Leviticus:

I will bring upon you a sword avenging the vengeance of the covenant; where, if ye shall be gathered together into your cities, I will send the pestilence into the midst of you, and I will deliver you into the hand of the enemy, when I shall break the staff of your bread (Leviticus 26:25-26); where in like manner the “sword” denotes the vastation of truth and the damnation of falsity; the “pestilence” the damnation of evil; the vastation of good, which is signified by “famine,” is described by “breaking the staff of their bread;” by “the cities into which they were to be gathered together,” in like manner as above, are signified the falsities by which they defend evils (that “cities” are truths, thus in the opposite sense falsities, see n. 402, 2268, 2712, 2943, 3216, 4492, 4493).

[6] In Ezekiel:

In that thou hast defiled My sanctuary with all thine abominations, a third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee; a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and a third part I will scatter to every wind, and will draw out a sword after them (Ezekiel 5:11-12); where “famine” denotes the damnation of evil; “sword,” the damnation of falsity; “to scatter to every wind, and to draw out the sword after them” denotes to dissipate truths and seize on falsities.

[7] In Jeremiah:

If they shall offer burnt-offering or meat-offering, I will not approve them; but I will consume them with sword, and with famine, and with pestilence (Jeremiah 14:12).

Again:

I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; they shall die of a great pestilence; afterward I will give Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who are left in this city from the pestilence, and from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he that goeth out and falleth away to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his soul shall be unto him for a spoil (Jeremiah 21:6-7, 9).

Again:

I will send upon them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, till they be consumed from upon the earth (Jeremiah 24:10); where also by the “sword” is signified the vastation of truth, by the “famine” the vastation of good, by the “pestilence” damnation. The like is signified by “the sword, the famine, and the pestilence” in the following passages, Jeremiah 27:8; 29:17-18; 32:24, 36; 34:17; 38:2; 42:17, 22; 44:13; Ezekiel 12:16.

[8] As these three follow in their order, therefore these three were proposed to David by the prophet Gad, namely, whether there should come seven years of famine; or he should flee three months before his enemies; or whether there should be three days’ pestilence in the land (2 Samuel 24:13); “to flee before his enemies” stands for “the sword.”

In Amos:

I have sent among you the pestilence in the way of Egypt; I have slain your young men with the sword, with the captivity of your horses (Amos 4:10);

“the pestilence in the way of Egypt” denotes the vastation of good by means of falsities, which are “the way of Egypt;” “I have slain your young men with the sword, with the captivity of the horses,” denotes the vastation of truth. (By “young men” are signified truths, and by “horses” things of the intellect, see n. 2761, 2762, 3217, 5321, 6534)

[9] In Ezekiel:

Pestilence and blood shall pass through thee (Ezekiel 5:17).

Again:

I will send unto her pestilence and blood in her streets (Ezekiel 28:23); where “pestilence” denotes adulterated good; and “blood,” falsified truth. (That “blood” denotes falsified truth, see n. 4735, 6978).

[10] In David:

Thou shalt not be afraid for the dread of night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day; for the pestilence that creepeth in thick darkness, nor for the death that wasteth at noonday (Psalms 91:5-6).

Here the “dread of night” denotes the falsity which is in secret; the “arrow that flieth by day,” the falsity which is in the open; the “pestilence that creepeth in thick darkness,” the evil which is in secret; the “death that wasteth at noonday,” the evil which is in the open. That “pestilence” denotes evil and the damnation of evil, is plain from death’s being spoken of also, which is here distinguished from the pestilence merely by its being said of death that “it wasteth at noonday,” and of the pestilence that “it creepeth in thick darkness.” Again:

He directed the way of His anger; He forbade not their soul from death, and closed their life with the pestilence (Psalms 78:50);

speaking of the Egyptians; the “pestilence” denotes every kind of evil and its damnation.

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