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Ezekiel 23

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1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, there were two women, daughters of one mother.

3 And they committed fornication in Egypt, in their youth they committed fornication: there were their breasts pressed down, and the teats of their virginity were bruised.

4 And their names were Oolla the elder, and Ooliba her younger sister: and I took them, and they bore sons and daughters. Now for their names, Samaria is Oolla, and Jerusalem is Ooliba.

5 And Oolla committed fornication against me, and doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians that came to her,

6 Who were clothed with blue, princes, and rulers, beautiful youths, all horsemen, mounted upon horses.

7 And she committed her fornications with those chosen men, all sons of the Assyrians: and she defiled herself with the uncleanness of all them on whom she doted.

8 Moreover also she did not forsake her fornications which she had committed in Egypt: for they also lay with her in her youth, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured out their fornication upon her.

9 Therefore have I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the sons of the Assyrians, upon whose lust she doted.

10 They discovered her disgrace, took away her sons and daughters, and slew her with the sword: and they became infamous women, and they executed judgments in her.

11 And when her sister Ooliba saw this, she was mad with lust more than she: and she carried her fornication beyond the fornication of her sister.

12 Impudently prostituting herself to the children of the Assyrians, the princes, and rulers that came to her, clothed with divers colours, to the horsemen that rode upon horses, and to young men all of great beauty.

13 And I saw that she was defiled, and that they both took one way.

14 And she increased her fornications: and when she had seen men painted on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans set forth in colours,

15 And girded with girdles about their reins, and with dyed turbans on their heads, the resemblance of all the captains, the likeness of the sons of Babylon, and of the land of the Chaldeans wherein they were born,

16 She doted upon them with the lust of her eyes, and she sent messengers to them into Chaldea.

17 And when the sons of Babylon were come to her to the bed of love, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was glutted with them.

18 And she discovered her fornications, and discovered her disgrace: and my soul was alienated from her, as my soul was alienated from her sister.

19 For she multiplied her fornications, remembering the days of her youth, in which she played the harlot in the land of Egypt.

20 And she was mad with lust after lying with them whose flesh is as the flesh of asses: and whose issue as the issue of horses.

21 And thou hast renewed the wickedness of thy youth, when thy breasts were pressed in Egypt, and the papa of thy virginity broken.

22 Therefore, Ooliba, thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will raise up against thee all thy lovers with whom thy soul hath been glutted: and I will gather them together against thee round about.

23 The children of Babylon, and all the Chaldeans, the nobles, and the kings, and princes, all the sons of the Assyrians, beautiful young men, all the captains, and rulers, the princes of princes, and the renowned horsemen.

24 And they shall come upon thee well appointed with chariot and wheel, a multitude of people: they shall be armed against thee on every side with breastplate, and buckler, and helmet: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee by their judgments.

25 And I will set my jealousy against thee, which they shall execute upon thee with fury: they shall cut off thy nose and thy ears: and what remains shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons, and thy daughters, and thy residue shall be devoured by fire.

26 And they shall strip thee of thy garments, and take away the instruments of thy glory.

27 And I will put an end to thy wickedness in thee, and thy fornication brought out of the land of Egypt: neither shalt thou lift up thy eyes to them, nor remember Egypt any more.

28 For thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will deliver thee into the hands of them whom thou hatest, into their hands with whom thy soul hath been glutted.

29 And they shall deal with thee in hatred, and they shall take away all thy labours, and shall let thee go naked, and full of disgrace, and the disgrace of thy fornication shall be discovered, thy wickedness, and thy fornications.

30 They have done these things to thee, because thou hast played the harlot with the nations among which thou wast defiled with their idols.

31 Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister, and I will give her cup into thy hand.

32 Thus saith the Lord God: Thou shalt drink thy sister's cup, deep, and wide: thou shalt be had in derision and scorn, which containeth very much.

33 Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness, and sorrow: with the cup of grief, and sadness, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.

34 And thou shalt drink it, and shalt drink it up even to the dregs, and thou shalt devour the fragments thereof, thou shalt rend thy breasts: because I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.

35 Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten me, and hast cast me off behind thy back, bear thou also thy wickedness, and thy fornications.

36 And the Lord spoke to me, saying: Son of man, dost thou judge Oolla, and Ooliba, and dost thou declare to them their wicked deeds?

37 Because they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and they have committed fornication with their idols: moreover also their children, whom they bore to me, they have offered to them to be devoured.

38 Yea, and they have done this to me. They polluted my sanctuary on the same day, and profaned my sabbaths.

39 And when they sacrificed their children to their idols, and went into my sanctuary the same day to profane it: they did these things even in the midst of my house.

40 They sent for men coming from afar, to whom they had sent a messenger: and behold they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, and didst paint thy eyes, and wast adorned with women's ornaments.

41 Thou sattest on a very fine bed, and a table was decked before thee: whereupon thou didst set my incense, and my ointment.

42 And there was in her the voice of a multitude rejoicing: and to some that were brought of the multitude of men, and that came from the desert, they put bracelets on their hands, and beautiful crowns on their heads.

43 And I said to her that was worn out in her adulteries: Now will this woman still continue in her fornication.

44 And they went in to her, as to a harlot: so went they in unto Oolla, and Ooliba, wicked women.

45 They therefore are k just men: these shall judge them as adulteresses are judged, and as shedders of blood are judged: because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.

46 For thus saith the Lord God: Bring a multitude upon them, and deliver them over to tumult and rapine:

47 And lee the people stone them with stones, and let them be stabbed with their swords: they shall kill their sons and daughters, and their houses they shall burn with fire.

48 And I will take away wickedness out of the land: and all women shall learn, not to do according to the wickedness of them.

49 And they shall render your wickedness upon you, and you shall bear the sins of your idols: and you shall know that I am the Lord God.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 748

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748. "And eat her flesh and burn her with fire." This symbolically means that Protestants will with hatred condemn and destroy in themselves the evils and falsities inherent in the Roman Catholic religion, and will renounce the religion itself and expunge it in themselves.

This is said of Protestants, who will deal thus with the harlot, that is, with the Roman Catholic religion. To eat her flesh means, symbolically, with hatred to condemn and destroy in themselves the inherent characteristics of that religion, which are evils and falsities, about which we will say more below. And to burn her with fire means, symbolically, to renounce that religion as profane and expunge it in themselves.

This is what burning with fire means because the penalty for profaning something holy was burning. Therefore, according to Divine law, people who profaned the name of Jehovah by worshiping other gods were burned with fire - they and all their belongings (Deuteronomy 13:12-18). Therefore Moses burned with fire the golden calf that the children of Israel were profanely worshiping (Exodus 32:20, Deuteronomy 9:21). Moreover, because two of Aaron's sons profaned holy things, they were consumed by fire from heaven (Leviticus 10:1-6). Nor is anything else symbolized by the fire and pyre in Tophet but the fire of hell, which awaits those who profane holy things (Isaiah 30:33, Jeremiah 7:11, 31-32; 19:5-6, 2 Kings 23:10), for there the people worshiped Molech with a heinous sacrifice. 1

[2] Since the fourth beast in Daniel 7 symbolizes a religion that profanes the Word and consequently the sanctities of the church (no. 717), therefore we are told that it was burned with fire (Daniel 7:11).

Now, because it is profane worship to worship a person instead of the Lord, we are accordingly told here that they burnt the harlot with fire, which symbolically means that they renounced the religion itself and expunged it in themselves.

To eat her flesh means, symbolically, with hatred to condemn and destroy in themselves the inherent characteristics of that religion, which are evils and falsities, because that is the symbolic meaning of eating her flesh. For flesh symbolizes the inherent characteristics of a thing which relate to goods and truths, and in an opposite sense, to evils and falsities, and to eat means, symbolically, to consume, thus to destroy.

That flesh symbolizes a person's inherent character, which in itself is evil, is clear from the following passages:

It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. (John 6:63)

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6)

As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to be children of God...: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh... (John 1:12-13)

(God) remembered that they were flesh, a breath that passes away and does not come again. (Psalms 78:39)

The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. (Isaiah 31:3)

(Jerusalem) committed harlotry with the Egyptians..., great of flesh. (Ezekiel 16:26)

Jesus... said to (Peter), ."..flesh and blood has not revealed this to you...." (Matthew 16:17)

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm... (Jeremiah 17:5)

[3] Because flesh symbolizes a person's inherent character, and people who hate others attack their personal character with the intention of destroying it, therefore to eat the flesh has also this symbolic meaning, as in the following passages:

Let the dying die, and the cut off be cut off. Those that are left eat each other's flesh. (Zechariah 11:9)

They shall devour Israel with the whole mouth... Every man shall eat the flesh of his own arm - Manasseh, Ephraim, and Ephraim, Manasseh. (Isaiah 9:12, 20-21)

I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh... (Isaiah 49:26)

...everyone shall eat the flesh of his friend... (Jeremiah 19:9)

To eat the flesh of sons and daughters (Jeremiah 19:9, Leviticus 26:29, Deuteronomy 28:53) means, symbolically, to destroy truths and goods in oneself, for sons symbolize truths, and daughters goods, as may be seen in nos. 139, 543, 545, 612[1-4] above.

Moreover, in the Word we find reference to "all flesh," and this symbolically means all mankind (Genesis 6:12-13, 17, 19).

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. The heinous sacrifice consisted of "passing infants through the fire to Molech," by burning them alive on a sacrificial altar. Vestiges of this worship have been found elsewhere, as far as northern Africa. Tophet was a site in the valley of Hinnom at the foot of Mount Zion on the south side. Because of the nature of its worship, the valley of Hinnon (Ge' Hinnom = Gehenna) became synonymous with Hades or hell.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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Genesis 6:17

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17 I, even I, do bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die.