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Matthew 7

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1 Judge not, that ye may not be judged;

2 for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.

3 But why lookest thou on the mote that is in the eye of thy brother, but observest not the beam that is in thine eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Allow [me], I will cast out the mote from thine eye; and behold, the beam is in thine eye?

5 Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou wilt see clearly to cast out the mote out of the eye of thy brother.

6 Give not that which is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before the swine, lest they trample them with their feet, and turning round rend you.

7 Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you.

8 For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.

9 Or what man is there of you who, if his son shall ask of him a loaf of bread, will give him a stone;

10 and if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent?

11 If therefore *ye*, being wicked, know [how] to give good gifts to your children, how much rather shall your Father who is in the heavens give good things to them that ask of him?

12 Therefore all things whatever ye desire that men should do to you, thus do *ye* also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

13 Enter in through the narrow gate, for wide the gate and broad the way that leads to destruction, and many are they who Enter in through it.

14 For narrow the gate and straitened the way that leads to life, and they are few who find it.

15 But beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but within are ravening wolves.

16 By their fruits ye shall know them. Do [men] gather a bunch of grapes from thorns, or from thistles figs?

17 So every good tree produces good fruits, but the worthless tree produces bad fruits.

18 A good tree cannot produce bad fruits, nor a worthless tree produce good fruits.

19 Every tree not producing good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.

20 By their fruits then surely ye shall know them.

21 Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that does the will of my Father who is in the heavens.

22 Many shall say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied through *thy* name, and through *thy* name cast out demons, and through *thy* name done many works of power?

23 and then will I avow unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, workers of lawlessness.

24 Whoever therefore hears these my words and does them, I will liken him to a prudent man, who built his house upon the rock;

25 and the rain came down, and the streams came, and the winds blew and fell upon that house, and it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.

26 And every one who hears these my words and does not do them, he shall be likened to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand;

27 and the rain came down, and the streams came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and its fall was great.

28 And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his doctrine,

29 for he taught them as having authority, and not as their scribes.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 6138

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6138. 'And we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves' means total submission. This is clear from the meaning of 'us and our ground' as the receptacles of goodness and truth, as immediately above in 6135-6137; and from the meaning of 'slaves' as existing without any freedom of one's own, dealt with in 5760, 5763, thus total submission. By receptacles are meant human forms themselves. For human beings are nothing else than forms receiving life from the Lord; yet the nature of those forms is such, owing to people's heredity and their own actions, that they refuse spiritual life coming from the Lord. But once those receptacles have been renounced so completely that they no longer claim any freedom of their own, there is total submission. The person who is being regenerated is brought at length, through the repeated experiences of desolation and sustainment, to a point at which he no longer wishes to be his own man but the Lord's. And once he has become the Lord's he passes into a state in which, if left to himself, he is dejected and gripped by anxiety. But when he is brought out of that state he returns to the bliss and happiness that are his, to the kind of state all the angels experience.

[2] The Lord desires any person's total submission so that He can make him blissful and happy. That is, He does not want him to be partly his own man and partly the Lord's, for then there are two masters whom a person cannot serve simultaneously, Matthew 6:24. Total submission is again meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Whoever loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me. Matthew 10:37.

'Father or mother' in general means those aspects of a person essentially his own by virtue of his heredity, and 'son or daughter' those essentially his own by virtue of his own actions. What is essentially a person's own is also meant by his 'soul' in John,

He who loves his soul will lose it, and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it into eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. John 11:25-26.

Total submission is also meant by the Lord's words in Matthew,

Another disciple said, Lord, let me first go away and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury their dead. Matthew 8:21-22.

[3] The need for total submission is perfectly clear from the Church's first commandment,

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Mark 12:30.

Thus since love to the Lord does not come from man but from the Lord Himself, all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, which are recipients, must be the Lord's; they must therefore be submitted totally to Him. Such a submission is what is meant by 'we will live, and our ground, as Pharaoh's slaves'; for 'Pharaoh' represents the natural in general, which is subject to the control of the internal celestial, in the highest sense to the control of the Lord, who is 'Joseph' in that highest sense.

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