Arcana Coelestia # 9189
9189. 'You shall not keep alive' means the deprivation of spiritual life. This is clear from the meaning of 'keeping alive' or 'bestowing life' as imparting spiritual life, dealt with in 5890, so that 'not keeping alive' means depriving of spiritual life. The fact that people deprive themselves of spiritual life if they join falsities arising from the evil of self-love to the truths of faith, such people being meant by 'sorcerers', see immediately above in 9188.
Jonah 3:7-8
7
He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, "Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water;
8
but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.
