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Jeremiah 16

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1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:

2 Thou shalt not take thee a wife, neither shalt thou have thee sons and daughters in this place.

3 For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and daughters, that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bore them: and concerning their fathers, of whom they were born in this land:

4 They shall die by the death of grievous illnesses: they shall not be lamented, and they shall not be buried, they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed with the sword, and with famine: and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of the air, and for the beasts of the earth.

5 For thus saith the Lord: Enter not into the house of feasting, neither go thou to mourn, nor to comfort them: because I have taken away my peace from this people, saith the Lord, my mercy and commiserations.

6 Both the great and the little shall die in the land: they shall not be buried nor lamented, and men shall not cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.

7 And they shall not break bread among them to him that mourneth, to comfort him for the dead: neither shall they give them to drink of the cup, to comfort them for their father and mother.

8 And do not thou go into the house of feasting, to sit with them, and to eat and drink.

9 For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will take away out of this place in your sight, and in your days the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride.

10 And when thou shalt tell this people all these words, and they shall say to thee: Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced against us all this great evil? what is our iniquity? and what is our sin, that we have sinned against the Lord our God?

11 Thou shalt say to them: Because your fathers forsook me, saith the Lord: and went after strange gods, and served them, and adored them: and they forsook me, and kept not my law.

12 And you also have done worse than your fathers: for behold every one of you walketh after the perverseness of his evil heart, so as not to hearken to me.

13 So I will cast you forth out of this land, into a land which you know not, nor you fathers: and there you shall serve strange gods day and night, which shall not give you any rest.

14 Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, when it shall be said no more: the Lord liveth, that brought for the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt:

15 But, the Lord liveth, that brought the children of Israel out of the land of the north, and out of all the lands to which I cast them out: and I will bring them again into their land, which I gave to their fathers.

16 Behold I will send many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them: and after this I will send them many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

17 For my eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, and their iniquity hath not been hid from my eyes.

18 And I will repay first their double iniquities, and their sins: because they have defiled my land with the carcasses of their idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.

19 O Lord, my might, and my strength, and my refuge in the day of tribulation: to thee the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: Surely our fathers have possessed lies, a vanity which hath not profited them.

20 Shall a man make gods unto himself, and there are no gods?

21 Therefore, behold I will this once cause them to know, I will shew them my hand and my power: and they shall know that my name is the Lord.

   

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Heaven and Hell # 365

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365. We may gather from this that rich people arrive in heaven just as much as poor people do, one as easily as the other. The reason people believe that it is easy for the poor and hard for the rich is that the Word is misunderstood when it talks about the rich and the poor. In the spiritual meaning of the Word, "the rich" means people who are amply supplied with understandings of what is true and good, that is, people in the church where the Word is. "The poor" means people who lack these understandings but who long for them, or people outside the church, where the Word is not found.

[2] The rich person dressed in purple and fine linen who was cast into hell means the Jewish nation. Because they had the Word and were therefore amply supplied with understandings of what is good and true, they are called "rich." The garments of purple actually mean understandings of what is good, and the fine linen means understandings of what is true. 1 The poor person who was lying in the gateway and who longed to feast on the crumbs that were falling from the rich person's table, who was carried up into heaven by angels, means the non-Jews who did not have understandings of what is good and true but who still longed for them (Luke 16:19, 31).

The rich who were invited to the great feast but who excused themselves also mean the Jewish nation, and the poor who were brought in to replace them mean the non-Jews who were outside the church (Luke 12:16-24, 14:16-24).

[3] We need also to explain who are meant by the rich of whom the Lord said, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24). "The rich person" here means the rich in both senses, natural and spiritual. Rich people in the natural sense are people who have abundant wealth and set their hearts on it, while in a spiritual sense they are people who are amply supplied with insights and knowledge (for these are spiritual wealth) and who want to use them to get themselves into heavenly and ecclesiastical circles by their own intellect. Since this is contrary to the divine design, it says that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. On this level of meaning, a camel means our cognitive and informational level in general, and the eye of a needle means spiritual truth. 2

Nowadays people do not know that this is the meaning of the camel and the eye of a needle because there has not yet been any access to the knowledge that teaches what is meant spiritually by the things that the Word says literally. There is spiritual meaning in the details of the Word, and natural meaning as well; because the Word was written in pure correspondences of natural realities with spiritual ones in order to effect a union of heaven and the world, or of angels with us, once the direct union had ceased. We can see from this exactly who are meant by the rich in the Word.

[4] We may gather from a number of passages that on the spiritual level "the rich" in the Word refers to people who enjoy insights into what is good and true and that wealth means those insights themselves, which are spiritual riches: see Isaiah 10:12-14; 30:6-7; 45:3, Jeremiah 17:3; 47:7 [Jeremiah 48:7?], Jeremiah 50:36-37; 51:13, Daniel 5:2-4, Ezekiel 26:7, 12; 27:1-36; Zechariah 9:3-4; Psalms 45:12; Hosea 12:9; Revelation 3:17-18, Luke 14:33, and elsewhere. On the poor in the spiritual sense as people who do not have insights into what is good and true but who long for them, see Matthew 11:5; Luke 6:20-21; 14:21; Isaiah 14:30; 29:19; 41:17-18; Zephaniah 3:12, 18 [13]. An explanation of the spiritual meaning of all these passages may be found in 10227 of Secrets of Heaven.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. [Swedenborg's footnote] Garments mean things that are true, and therefore insights: 1033 [1073?], 2576, 5319, 5954, 9212, 9216, 9952, 10536. Purple means heavenly good: 9467. Linen means truth of a heavenly origin: 5319, 9469, 9744.

2. [Swedenborg's footnote] A camel in the Word means our cognitive and informational level in general: 3048, 3071, 3143, 3145. What embroidery, embroidering, and therefore needles Arcana Coelestia 9688. To start from outward facts in order to gain access to truths of faith is contrary to the divine design: 10236. People who do this become insane in matters of heaven and the church: 128-130, 232-233, 6047; and in the other life, when they think about spiritual things, they become virtually drunk: 1072. More about their nature: 196. Examples to illustrate the fact that spiritual things cannot be grasped if they are approached on this basis: 233, 2094, 2196, 2203, 2209. It is all right to go from spiritual truth into the knowledge appropriate to our natural level, but not the other way around, because there is an inflow of the spiritual into the natural but not an inflow of the natural into the spiritual: 3219, 5119, 5259, 5427-5428, 5478, 6322, 9110-9111 [10199?]. We need first to acknowledge the truths of the Word and the church, and then it is all right to take our secular learning into account; but not the other way around: 6047.

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

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Ezekiel 27

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1 The word of Yahweh came again to me, saying,

2 You, son of man, take up a lamentation over Tyre;

3 and tell Tyre, you who dwell at the entry of the sea, who are the merchant of the peoples to many islands, thus says the Lord Yahweh: You, Tyre, have said, I am perfect in beauty.

4 Your borders are in the heart of the seas; your builders have perfected your beauty.

5 They have made all your planks of fir trees from Senir; they have taken a cedar from Lebanon to make a mast for you.

6 Of the oaks of Bashan have they made your oars; they have made your benches of ivory inlaid in boxwood, from the islands of Kittim.

7 Of fine linen with embroidered work from Egypt was your sail, that it might be to you for a banner; blue and purple from the islands of Elishah was your awning.

8 The inhabitants of Sidon and Arvad were your rowers: your wise men, Tyre, were in you, they were your pilots.

9 The old men of Gebal and the wise men of it were in you your repairers of ship seams: all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in you to deal in your merchandise.

10 Persia and Lud and Put were in your army, your men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in you; they set forth your comeliness.

11 The men of Arvad with your army were on your walls all around, and valorous men were in your towers; they hanged their shields on your walls all around; they have perfected your beauty.

12 Tarshish was your merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded for your wares.

13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were your traffickers; they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass for your merchandise.

14 They of the house of Togarmah traded for your wares with horses and war horses and mules.

15 The men of Dedan were your traffickers; many islands were the market of your hand: they brought you in exchange horns of ivory and ebony.

16 Syria was your merchant by reason of the multitude of your handiworks: they traded for your wares with emeralds, purple, and embroidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and rubies.

17 Judah, and the land of Israel, they were your traffickers: they traded for your merchandise wheat of Minnith, and confections, and honey, and oil, and balm.

18 Damascus was your merchant for the multitude of your handiworks, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches, with the wine of Helbon, and white wool.

19 Vedan and Javan traded with yarn for your wares: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were among your merchandise.

20 Dedan was your trafficker in precious cloths for riding.

21 Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they were the merchants of your hand; in lambs, and rams, and goats, in these were they your merchants.

22 The traffickers of Sheba and Raamah, they were your traffickers; they traded for your wares with the chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.

23 Haran and Canneh and Eden, the traffickers of Sheba, Asshur [and] Chilmad, were your traffickers.

24 These were your traffickers in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and embroidered work, and in chests of rich clothing, bound with cords and made of cedar, among your merchandise.

25 The ships of Tarshish were your caravans for your merchandise: and you were replenished, and made very glorious in the heart of the seas.

26 Your rowers have brought you into great waters: the east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas.

27 Your riches, and your wares, your merchandise, your mariners, and your pilots, your repairers of ship seams, and the dealers in your merchandise, and all your men of war, who are in you, with all your company which is in the midst of you, shall fall into the heart of the seas in the day of your ruin.

28 At the sound of the cry of your pilots the suburbs shall shake.

29 All who handled the oar, the mariners, [and] all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships; they shall stand on the land,

30 and shall cause their voice to be heard over you, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust on their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes:

31 and they shall make themselves bald for you, and clothe them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for you in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning.

32 In their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for you, and lament over you, [saying], Who is there like Tyre, like her who is brought to silence in the midst of the sea?

33 When your wares went forth out of the seas, you filled many peoples; you did enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of your riches and of your merchandise.

34 In the time that you were broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, your merchandise and all your company did fall in the midst of you.

35 All the inhabitants of the islands are astonished at you, and their kings are horribly afraid; they are troubled in their face.

36 The merchants among the peoples hiss at you; you are become a terror, and you shall nevermore have any being.