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Deuteronomy 13

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1 If there arise among you a prophet, or one that dreameth dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder,

2 and the sign or the wonder come to pass that he told unto thee, when he said, Let us go after other gods, whom thou hast not known, and let us serve them,

3 -- thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams; for Jehovah your God proveth you, to know whether ye love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

4 Ye shall walk after Jehovah your God, and ye shall fear him, and his commandments shall ye keep, and his voice shall ye hear; and ye shall serve him, and unto him shall ye cleave.

5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; for he hath spoken revolt against Jehovah your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, -- to draw thee out of the way that Jehovah thy God commanded thee to walk in; and thou shalt put evil away from thy midst.

6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, who is to thee as thy soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods (whom thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

7 of the gods of the peoples which are round about you, near unto thee, or far from thee, from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth),

8 thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye spare him, neither shalt thou pity him, neither shalt thou screen him,

9 but thou shalt in any case kill him: thy hand shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people;

10 and thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; for he hath sought to draw thee away from Jehovah thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;

11 and all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wicked thing as this in thy midst.

12 If in one of thy cities, which Jehovah thy God hath given thee to dwell there, thou hearest, saying,

13 There are men, children of Belial, gone out from among you, and they have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, whom ye have not known;

14 then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and if it be truth, [and] the thing be certain, that this abomination hath happened in the midst of thee,

15 thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, devoting it to destruction, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.

16 And all the spoil of it shalt thou gather into the midst of the open place thereof, and shalt burn the city with fire, and all the spoil thereof, wholly to Jehovah thy God; and it shall be a heap for ever; it shall not be built again.

17 And thou shalt not let anything cleave to thy hand of the devoted thing; that Jehovah may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;

18 when thou hearkenest to the voice of Jehovah thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, that thou mayest do what is right in the eyes of Jehovah thy God.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 3698

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3698. 'He dreamed' means foresight. This is clear from the meaning of 'dreaming' in the internal sense as foretelling things to come, for prophetical dreams, which were Divine, were foretellings of things to come, as becomes clear from the dreams described in the Word, 1975, 1976. Because 'dreams' and 'dreaming' in the internal sense mean things to come, foresight is meant in the highest sense in which the subject is the Lord, for the Lord's Divine foresight is the source of foretellings of things to come. The fact that the foretellings of events which are out of the ordinary and cannot therefore be foreseen have no other origin becomes clear from the Word, as from the following words in Moses,

When a prophet has spoken in the name of Jehovah but that event has not happened or taken place it was not Jehovah who spoke. The prophet spoke it presumptuously. Deuteronomy 18:22.

[2] And even the foretellings of events which did take place may have been made by evil people and worshippers of another god, as stated in the same book,

If a prophet or the dreamer of a dream arises in the midst of you, and gives you a sign or else a wonder, and the sign or wonder he has told you comes to pass, and he says, Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them; you shall not obey the words of that prophet or the dreamer of that dream; for Jehovah your God is testing you. Deuteronomy 13:1-3.

From these words it is evident that the actual foretelling originated in the Divine but the incitement to worship other gods in the proprium of the prophet, who was allowed to make such a suggestion to people so that they could be tested, as is stated. This among other reasons is also why on many occasions in former times people who worshipped the baals and other gods even prophesied, saw visions, and dreamed dreams, and also why what they uttered actually happened, so that they frequently led others astray. These people are referred to in Jeremiah 23. And besides these there were others called diviners, soothsayers, sorcerers, familiar spirits, among those who applied themselves to natural magic, from which nothing at all Divine could be foretold, only what was contrary to the Divine, that is, to the Lord, and contrary to the good of love and to the truth of faith in Him. This is magic, no matter what it looks like in outward appearance.

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