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Jeremiah 51

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1 Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will raise up as it were a pestilential wind against Babylon and against the inhabitants thereof, who have lifted up their heart against me.

2 And I will send to Babylon fanners, and they shall fan her, and shall destroy her land: for they are come upon her on every side in the day of her affliction.

3 Let not him that bendeth, bend his bow, and let not, him go up that is armed with a coat of mail: spare not her young men, destroy all her army.

4 And the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and the wounded in the regions thereof.

5 For Israel and Juda have not been forsaken by their God the Lord of hosts: but their land hath been filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.

6 Flee ye from the midst of Babylon, and let every one save his own life: be not silent upon her iniquity: for it is the time of revenge from the Lord, he will I render unto her what she hath deserved.

7 Babylon hath been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord, that made all the earth drunk: the nations have drunk of her wine, and therefore they have staggered.

8 Babylon is suddenly fallen, and destroyed: howl for her, take balm for her pain, if so she may be healed.

9 We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed: let us forsake her, and let us go every man to his own land: because her judgment hath reached even to the heavens, and is lifted up to the clouds.

10 The Lord hath brought forth our justices: Come, and let us declare in Sion the work of The Lord our God.

11 Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers, the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: and his mind is against Babylon to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple.

12 Upon the walls of Babylon set up the standard, strengthen the watch: set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the Lord hath both purposed, and done all that he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.

13 O thou that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures, thy end is come for thy entire destruction.

14 The Lord of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying : I will fill thee with men as with locusts, and they shall lift up a joyful shout against thee.

15 He that made the earth by his power, that hath prepared the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.

16 When he uttereth his voice the waters are multiplied in heaven: he lifteth up the clouds from the ends of the earth, he hath turned lightning into rain: and hath brought forth the wind out of his treasures.

17 Every man is become foolish by his knowledge: every founder is confounded by his idol, for what he hath cast is a lie, and there is no breath in them.

18 They are vain works, and worthy to be laughed at, in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

19 The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he that made all things he it is, and Israel is the sceptre of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name.

20 Thou dashest together for me the weapons of war, and with thee I will dash nations together, and with thee I will destroy kingdoms:

21 And with thee I will break in pieces the horse, and his rider, and with thee I will break in pieces the chariot, and him that getteth up into it:

22 And with thee I will break in pieces man and woman, and with thee I will break in pieces the old man and the child, and with thee I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin:

23 And with thee I will break in pieces the shepherd and his dock, and with thee I will break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen, and with thee I will break in pieces captains and rulers.

24 And I will render to Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil, that they have done in Sion, before your eyes, saith the Lord.

25 Behold I come against thee, thou destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which corruptest the whole earth: and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and will roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.

26 And they shall not take of thee a stone for the corner, nor a stone for foundations, but thou shalt be destroyed for ever, saith the Lord.

27 Set ye up a standard in the land: sound with the trumpet among the nations: prepare the nations against her: call together against her the kings of Ararat, Menni, and Ascenez: number Taphsar against her, bring the horse as the stinging locust.

28 Prepare the nations against her, the kings of Media, their captains, and all their rulers, and all the land of their dominion.

29 And the land shall be in a commotion, and shall be troubled: for the design of the Lord against Babylon shall awake, to make the land of Babylon desert and uninhabitable.

30 The valiant men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they have dwelt in holds: their strength hath failed, and they are become as women: her dwelling places are burnt, her bars are broken.

31 One running post shall meet another, and messenger shall meet messenger: to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken from one end to the other:

32 And that the fords are taken, and the marshes are burnt with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

33 For thus saith the Lord of hosts the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a thrashingfloor, this is the time of her thrashing: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.

34 Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon hath eaten me up, he hath devoured me: he hath made me as an empty vessel: he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicate meats, and he hath cast me out.

35 The wrong done to me, and my flesh be upon Babylon, saith the habitation of Sion : and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, saith Jerusalem.

36 Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will judge thy cause, and will take vengeance for thee, and I will make her sea desolate, and will dry up her spring.

37 And Babylon shall be reduced to heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment and a hissing, because there is no inhabitant.

38 They shall roar together like lions, they shall shake their manes like young lions.

39 In their heat I will set them drink: and I will make them drunk, that they may slumber, and sleep an everlasting sleep, and awake no more, saith the Lord.

40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with kids.

41 How is Sesach taken, and the renowned one of all the earth surprised? How is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations?

42 The sea is come up over Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

43 Her cities are become an astonishment, a land uninhabited and desolate, a land wherein none can dwell, nor son of man pass through it.

44 And I will visit against Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he had swallowed down: and the rations shall no more flow together to him, for the wall also of Babylon shall fall.

45 Go out of the midst of her, my people: that every man may save his life from the fierce wrath of the Lord.

46 And lest your hearts faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land : and a rumour shall come in one year, and after this year another rumour: and iniquity in the land, and ruler upon ruler.

47 Therefore behold the days come, and I will visit the idols of Babylon: and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

48 And the heavens and the earth, and all things that are in them shall give praise for Babylon: for spoilers shall come to her from the north, saith the Lord.

49 And as Babylon caused that there should fall slain in Israel: so of Babylon there shall fall slain in all the earth.

50 You that have escaped the sword, come away, stand not still: remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

51 We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: shame hath covered our faces: because strangers are come upon the sanctuaries of the house of the Lord.

52 Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit her graven things, and in all her land the wounded shall groan:

53 If Babylon should mount up to heaven, and establish her strength on high: from me there should come spoilers upon her, saith the Lord.

54 The noise of a cry from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans :

55 Because the Lord hath laid Babylon waste, and destroyed out of her the great voice: and their wave shall roar like many waters: their voice hath made a noise:

56 Because the spoiler is come upon her, that is, upon Babylon, and her valiant men are taken, and their bow is weakened, because the Lord, who is a strong revenger, will surely repay.

57 And I will make her princes drunk. and her wise men, and her captains, and her rulers, and her valiant men: and they shall sleep an everlasting sleep, and shall awake no more, saith the whose name is Lord of hosts.

58 Thus saith the Lord of hosts: That broad wall of Babylon shall be utterly broken down, and her high gates shall be burnt with fire, and the labours of the people shall come to nothing, and of the nations shall go to the fire, and shall perish.

59 The word that Jeremias the prophet commanded Saraias the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, when he went with king Sedecias to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign: now Saraias was chief over the prophecy.

60 And Jeremias wrote in one book all the evil that was to come upon Babylon: all these words that are written against Babylon.

61 And Jeremias said to Saraias: When thou shalt come into Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words,

62 Thou shalt say: O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place to destroy it: so that there should be neither man nor beast to dwell therein, and that it should be desolate for ever.

63 And when thou shalt have made an end of reading this book, thou shalt tie a stone to it, and shalt throw it into the midst of the Euphrates:

64 And thou shalt say: Thus shall Babylon sink, and she shall not rise up from the affliction that I will bring upon her, and she shall be utterly destroyed. Thus far are the words of Jeremias.

   

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Apocalypse Revealed # 537

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537. Behold, a great, fiery red dragon. This symbolizes people in the Protestant Reformed Church who make God three entities and the Lord two, and who divorce charity from faith, making faith saving and not at the same time charity.

These are the people meant by the dragon here and in the following verses. For they are antagonistic to the two essential elements of the New Church, namely, that God is one in essence and person, in whom is the Trinity, and that that God is the Lord; moreover, that charity and faith are one, like an essence and its form, and that only those people possess charity and faith who live in accordance with the Ten Commandments, which teach that evils are not to be done. To the extent anyone does not do evils then, by refraining from them as sins against God, to the same extent he does goods which are goods of charity and believes truths that are truths of faith.

[2] Everyone who considers it can see that people who make God three entities and the Lord two, and who divorce charity from faith, making faith saving and not at the same time charity, are antagonistic to these two essential elements of the New Church.

When we say that they make God three entities and the Lord two, we mean people who think of three persons as three gods and distinguish the Lord's humanity from His Divinity. Who, moreover, entertains any other thought, or can entertain any other thought, when he prays in accordance with the formal expression of his faith "that God the Father may send the Holy Spirit for His Son's sake"? Does he not pray to God the Father as one God, for the sake of the Son as another, concerning the Holy Spirit as a third?

It is apparent from this that even though someone intellectually may make the three persons one God, still he distinguishes between them, which is to say that he pictures them as three Gods when he prays these words. The same formal expression of his faith also makes the Lord two entities, since one thinks then only of the Lord's humanity and not at the same time of His Divinity; for the phrase, "for His Son's sake," means for the sake of His humanity that suffered the cross.

From this it can now be seen just who those are who are meant by the dragon which attempted to devour the woman's child, and which, because of the child, afterward pursued the woman into the wilderness.

[3] The dragon is called great because, with the exception of some people here and there who do not believe in the same way regarding the Trinity and faith, all the Protestant Reformed churches distinguish God into three persons and make faith alone saving. People who distinguish God into three persons and cling to this statement in the Athanasian Creed, "There is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit," and also to this, "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God" - these people, I say, cannot make one God out of three. They can indeed say they are one God, but they cannot think it.

By the same token people who think of the Lord's Divinity from eternity as a second person in the Godhead, and of His humanity in time as being like the humanity of any other person, cannot help but make the Lord two entities, despite the statement in the Athanasian Creed that His Divinity and humanity are one person, united like soul and body.

[4] The dragon is called fiery red because a fiery red color symbolizes falsity arising from the evils attendant on lusts, which is a falsity of hell.

Now because these two fundamental doctrinal tenets in the Protestant Reformed churches are false, and falsities destroy the church, inasmuch as they take away its truths and goods, therefore they were represented by the dragon. That is because a dragon in the Word symbolizes the destruction of the church, as can be seen from the following passages:

I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a habitation of dragons; and I will turn the cities of Judah into a wasteland... (Jeremiah 9:11)

Behold..., there has come... a great tumult out of the north country, to turn the cities of Judah into a wasteland, a habitation of dragons. (Jeremiah 10:22)

Hazor shall be a habitation of dragons, a desolation forever. (Jeremiah 49:33)

...that it may be a habitation of dragons, a courtyard for the offspring of owls. (Isaiah 34:13)

In the habitation of dragons, her couch... (Isaiah 35:7)

I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like dragons, and a mourning like the offspring of owls. (Micah 1:8)

...I cried out for help. I am a brother of dragons, and a companion of the offspring of the screech owl. (Job 30:28-29)

The iyyim 1 will reply in her palaces, and dragons in her... temples. (Isaiah 13:22)

Let Babylon be a heap, a habitation of dragons, as a hissing and an astonishment... (Jeremiah 51:37)

You have crushed us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. (Psalms 44:18-19)

I have made (Esau's) mountains a wasteland, and his inheritance one for dragons of the wilderness. (Malachi 1:3)

And so on elsewhere, as in Isaiah 43:20, Jeremiah 14:6, Psalms 91:13-14, Deuteronomy 32:33.

[5] The dragon here means people who are caught up in faith alone and who reject works of the Law as not saving, and I have had this attested several times by personal experience in the spiritual world. I have seen many thousands of such people assembled into companies, and at a distance then they looked like a dragon with a long tail, which seemed to be covered with thorn-like spikes, symbolizing falsities.

I also once saw a still bigger dragon, which arched its back and extended its tail up to the sky in an effort to draw down the stars from there.

I thus had it visually shown to me that these and no others are the people meant by the dragon.

Poznámky pod čarou:

1. A Hebrew word אִיִּים, appearing only three times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 13:22; 34:14

  
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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.