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Joel 3

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1 For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall bring back the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem:

2 I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have parted my land.

3 And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy they have put in the stews, and the girl they have sold for wine, that they might drink.

4 But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the coast of the Philistines? will you revenge yourselves on me? and if you revenge yourselves on me, I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head.

5 For you have taken away my silver and my gold: and my desirable and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples.

6 And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far off from their own country.

7 Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have sold them: and I will return your recompense upon your own heads.

8 And I will sell your sons, and your daughters by the hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord hath spoken it.

9 Proclaim ye this among the nations: prepare war, rouse up the strong: let them come, let all the men of war come up.

10 Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears. Let the weak say: I am strong.

11 Break forth, and come, all ye nations, from round about, and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong ones to fall down.

12 Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about.

13 Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied.

14 Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction.

15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining.

16 And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

17 And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall pass through it no more.

18 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns.

19 Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land.

20 And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation.

21 And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed: and the Lord will dwell in Sion.

   

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True Christianity # 620

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620. The fact that regeneration is not possible without the truths that shape our faith can be illustrated by the following comparisons. This is no more possible than a human mind without an intellect, since truths are what shape our intellect. Our intellect is what teaches us what to believe, what to do, what regeneration is, and how it happens.

Truths are equally as necessary to regeneration as the sun's light is to the life of animals and the growth of trees. If the sun did not give light along with heat, it would be like the sun that is described in the Book of Revelation as sackcloth of hair (Revelation 6:12), or like the blackened sun (Joel 2:31) that leads to thick darkness on the earth (Joel 2:2). A similar thing would happen to us without truths that emit light.

The Lord in the spiritual world is the sun that radiates the light of truth. Without spiritual light flowing into human minds, the church is in thick darkness, like the shadow of an everlasting eclipse.

[2] Undergoing a process of regeneration, which is carried out by means of faith and goodwill, but without truths to teach and lead us, would be like sailing across a great ocean without a helm or without a compass and charts. It would be like riding a horse through a dark forest at night.

The inner mental vision of people who have falsities instead of truths, but believe them to be true, could be compared to the eyesight of people who have a blockage in their optic nerve; although they cannot see a thing through their eye, it still looks as though it is functioning and healthy. Physicians call this form of blindness amaurosis or "transparent blockage. " Their rational or intellectual faculty is closed at the top and open only at the bottom, which causes their rational light to be no better than the light they receive through their eyes. The judgments they come to are therefore all fabricated and are sewn together with mistaken impressions. They stand like astrologers on street corners with telescopes, uttering meaningless predictions. This will be the condition of all who are devoted to theology if the Lord does not open up genuine truths from the Word.

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