Jeremiah 5
1
Go about through the streets of Jerusalem, and see, and consider, and seek in the broad places thereof, if you can fins a man that executeth judgement, and seeketh faith: and I will be merciful unto it.
2
And though they say: The Lord liveth; this also they will swear falsely.
3
O Lord, thy eyes are upon truth: thou hast struck them, and they have not grieved: thou hast bruised them, and they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than the rock, and they have refused to return.
4
But I said: Perhaps these are poor and foolish, that know not the way of the Lord, the judgement of their God.
5
I will go therefore to the great men, and I will speak to them: for they known the way of the Lord, the judgement of their God: and behold these have together broken the yoke more, and have burst the bonds.
6
Wherefore a lion out of the wood hath slain them, a wolf in the evening, hath spoiled them, a leopard watcheth for their cities: every one that shall go out thence shall be taken, because their transgressions are multiplied, their rebellions are strengthened.
7
How can I be merciful to thee? thy children have forsaken me, and swear by them that are not gods: I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery, and rioted in the harlot's house.
8
They are become as amorous horses and stallions, every one neighed after his neighbor's wife.
9
Shall I not visit for these things, sayeth the Lord? and shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation?
10
Scale down the walls thereof, and throw them down, but do not utterly destroy: take away the branches thereof, because they are not the Lord's.
11
For the house of Israel, and the house of Juda have greatly transgressed against me, saith the Lord.
12
They have denied the Lord, and said, It is not he: and the evil shall not come upon us: we shall not see the sword and famine.
13
The prophets have spoken in the wind, and there was no word of God in them: these things therefore shall befall them.
14
Thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: Because you have spoken this word, behold I will make my words in thy mouth as fire, and this people as wood, and it shall devour them.
15
Behold I will bring upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, saith the Lord: a strong nation, an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou shalt not know, nor understand what they say.
16
Their quiver is as an open sepulchre, they are all valiant.
17
And they shall eat up thy corn, and thy bread: they shall devour thy sons, and thy daughters: they shall eat up thy flocks, and thy herds: they shall eat thy vineyards, and thy figs: and with the sword they shall destroy thy strong cities, wherein thou trustest.
18
Nevertheless in those days, saith the Lord, I will not bring you to utter destruction.
19
And if you shall say: why hath the Lord our God done all these things to us? thou shalt say to them: As you have forsaken me, and served a strange God in your own land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not your own.
20
Declare ye this to the house of Jacob, and publish it in Juda, saying:
21
Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and Hear not.
22
Will not you then fear me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent at my presence? I have set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which it shall not pass over: and the waves thereof shall toss themselves, and shall not prevail: they shall swell, and shall not pass over it.
23
But the heart of this people is become hard of belief and provoking, they are revolted and gone away.
24
And they have not said in their heart: let us fear the Lord our God, who giveth us the early and the latter rain in due season: who preserveth for us the fullness of the yearly harvest.
25
Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withholden good things from you.
26
For among my people are found wicked men, that lie in wait as fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men.
27
As a net is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit: therefore are they become great and enriched.
28
They are grown gross and fat: andhave most wickedly transgressed my words. They have not judged the cause of the widow, they have not managed the cause of the fatherless, they have not judged the judgement of the poor.
29
Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation?
30
Astonishing and wonderful things have been done in the land.
31
The prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands: and my people loved such things: what then shall be done in the end thereof?
Arcana Coelestia # 1876
1876. The names of men, kingdoms, or cities that occur in the Word, as with the expressions of human speech, disappear at the very threshold of their progress upwards; for those names are earthly, bodily, and material, being things of which souls entering the next life gradually divest themselves and of which those entering heaven do so altogether. Angels do not retain the least idea of any person, nor therefore of his name. What Abram is, what Isaac is, or Jacob, they do not know any longer. Instead they form an idea for themselves from the things that are represented and meant by those characters in the Word. Names and expressions are like dust or like scales that fall off when they enter heaven. From this it becomes clear that names in the Word mean nothing other than real things. On these matters I have spoken many times to angels, who have informed me fully regarding the truth. The speech that spirits employ among themselves does not consist of verbal expressions but of ideas, like those comprising human thought without words, and is therefore the universal language of all languages. But when they speak to man their speech falls into the expressions of human language, as stated in 1635, 1637, 1639.
[2] When discussing this matter with spirits I have been given to say that when they are conversing among themselves they are not able to utter one single word of human language, still less utter any name. Astonished by this some went away and tried to do so, but on returning they said that they had been unable to pronounce them because those words were so grossly material that they belonged below their own sphere, for such words were produced by an audible emission of air articulated by organs of the body, or else by means of an influx into the same organs by an internal route leading to the organ of hearing. From this it also became perfectly clear that no part of any expression which occurs in the Word was able to pass over to spirits. Still less could it pass over to angelic spirits, whose speech is even more universal, 1642. And least of all could it pass over to angels, 1643, with whom nothing remains of even the first ideas that spirits possess; instead angels have spiritual truths and celestial goods. Such truths and goods are varied in an indescribable manner in their least forms - which are continuous and knit together in a harmonious sequence - together with the first springs of representatives whose very great delightfulness and beauty flow from the happiness belonging to mutual love, and whose happiness flows from all their delight and beauty, because the Lord's life is inspired into them
