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Hosea 8

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1 Set the trumpet to thy mouth. [He cometh] as an eagle against the house of Jehovah, because they have transgressed my covenant, and rebelled against my law.

2 They shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee; [we], Israel.

3 Israel hath cast off good: the enemy shall pursue him.

4 They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not; of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.

5 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast [thee] off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will they be incapable of purity?

6 For from Israel is this also: -- a workman made it, and it is no God: for the calf of Samaria shall be [broken in] pieces.

7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; should it sprout, it would yield no meal; if so be it yield, strangers shall swallow it up.

8 Israel is swallowed up: now are they become among the nations as a vessel wherein is no pleasure.

9 For they are gone up [to] Assyria [as] a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers.

10 Although they hire among the nations, now will I gather them, and they shall begin to be straitened under the burden of the king of princes.

11 Because Ephraim hath multiplied altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin.

12 I have prescribed unto him the manifold things of my law: they are counted [as] a strange thing.

13 They sacrifice flesh [for] the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it; Jehovah hath no delight in them. Now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt.

14 For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples; and Judah hath multiplied fenced cities: but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

   

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Isaiah 17

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1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from [being] a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks; and they shall lie down and there shall be none to make them afraid.

3 The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts.

4 And in that day it shall come to pass, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall become lean.

5 And it shall be as when the reaper gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; yea, it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.

6 And a gleaning shall be left in it, as at the shaking of an olive-tree: two, three berries above, in the tree-top; four, five in its fruitful boughs, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel.

7 In that day shall man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have regard to the Holy One of Israel.

8 And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, nor have regard to what his fingers have made, neither the Asherahs nor the sun-images.

9 In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken tract in the woodland, and the mountain-top which they forsook before the children of Israel; and there shall be desolation.

10 For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength; therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plantations, and shalt set them with foreign slips:

11 in the day of thy planting wilt thou make [them] to grow, and on the morrow wilt thou make thy seed to flourish; [but] the harvest will flee in the day of taking possession, and the sorrow will be incurable.

12 Ha! a tumult of many peoples! they make a noise as the noise of the seas; -- and the rushing of nations! they rush as the rushing of mighty waters.

13 The nations rush as the rushing of many waters; but he will rebuke them, and they shall flee far away, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a whirling [of dust] before the whirlwind:

14 behold, at eventide, trouble; before the morning they are not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 9255

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9255. 'When you meet your enemy's ox or his ass going astray' means unauthentic good and unauthentic truth with those who are outside the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'enemy' as those outside the Church, who are the subject below; from the meaning of 'ox' as the external man's good, and from the meaning of 'ass' as the external man's truth, both dealt with in 2781, 9135 - but unauthentic good and truth, such as exists with those outside the Church, who are meant by 'enemy'. The reason why those outside the Church are meant by 'enemy' is that they have a different idea of what the good and truth of faith are, because they do not possess the Word and therefore do not know anything about the Lord or about Christian faith and charity that come from the Lord alone. Consequently their truth of faith is not authentic, neither is their good of charity. Therefore also they do not live together in the next life with those who belong to the Church but are separated from them. All in the next life are formed into communities according to their good and the truth flowing from it, for these are what compose spiritual life and link people together.

[2] However, those in heaven do not regard people outside the Church as enemies; rather they teach them and bring them to Christian good, which is also welcomed by those of them who in the world have led dutiful and obedient lives, in some kind of charity towards one another that is prescribed by their religion. But the sense of the letter of the Word calls them 'enemies' on account of their lack of spiritual agreement, which is, as has been stated, their different idea of what the truth of faith and the good of charity are. See what has been shown from experience regarding the state and condition in the next life of nations outside the Church, in 2589-2604, 2861, 2863, 4190, 4197. The requirement to regard these very people as friends, and to teach and correct them, is the meaning in the internal sense of the words you shall surely bring it back, which the next paragraph deals with.

[3] Only this needs to be added here, that in the Word various kinds of beasts mean affections and inclinations such as the human being shares in common with beasts, and in the spiritual sense affections for goodness and truth, internal and external, see 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 714, 715, 776, 2179, 2180, 2781, 3218, 3519, 5198, 9090; and that beasts were therefore used in sacrifices in accordance with their spiritual meaning, 1823, 2180, 2805, 2807, 2830, 3519. Consequently this law of personal conduct stating that an enemy's oxen and asses going astray should be brought back to him means in the spiritual sense such things as are characteristic of the Church, thus such as are feelings of mutual love or charity towards those whose ideas are different from the Church's truths.

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