9283. 'And you shall not mention the name of other gods' means that they should not base their thinking on teachings that present what is false. This is clear from the meaning of 'the name' as everything belonging to religious teachings and everything belonging to worship in their entirety, dealt with in 2724, 3237, 6887, 8274, 8882, at this point everything belonging to teachings that present what is false since falsities are meant by 'other gods', 4544, 7873, 8867; and from the meaning of 'mentioning' as thinking. 'Mentioning' means thinking because mentioning is done by the mouth, and aspects of thought are meant by the utterances of the mouth. The reason for this is that a person's speech flows from his thought; for a person possesses thought which speaks and thought which does not speak. Thought which speaks is that which makes one with the words uttered. Thought which does not speak is that which makes one with the thought which does speak, and so with words that are uttered, in those who are honest and righteous, but not so in those who are dishonest or unrighteous. For thought which does not speak is a higher or more internal degree of understanding in a person, springing from his actual will. But thought which speaks is a lower or more external degree of understanding, formed from the higher or more internal in order to present or else feign before the world ideas of what is right and fair and ideas of what is good and true.

[2] All this demonstrates what the person who is honest and righteous is like and what the person who is dishonest or unrighteous is like. That is to say, it demonstrates that with the person who is honest and righteous the internal man has come to conform to an image of heaven, and the external man to an image of the world subordinated to heaven, 9279; but with the person who is dishonest or unrighteous the internal man has come to conform to an image of hell, and the external man to an image of heaven subordinated to hell, because he uses his external man to make a pretence of heavenly things, and employs rational concepts received from heaven to sanction evil cravings and also to deceive. From all this it is evident that opposite states of life exist with the righteous and the unrighteous.

1003. That 'not eating flesh with its soul, its blood' means not mixing together unholy things with holy is now clear from what has been stated above. Unholy things are in no way mixed with holy through somebody's eating blood along with the flesh, as also the Lord clearly teaches in Matthew,

Not what goes into the mouth renders a man unclean, but what comes out of the mouth, this renders the man unclean. For the things which come out of the mouth come out of the heart. Matthew 15:11, 17-20.

It was prohibited in the Jewish Church however because in heaven, as stated, eating blood along with the flesh in those days represented profanation. Everything that took place in that Church was converted in heaven into corresponding representatives. Blood in particular was converted into that which is holy and celestial, while flesh, with the exception of that offered in sacrifices, was converted into that which is unholy, because, as has been shown, it meant evil desires. The mere eating of the two in those times was converted into a mixing together of what is holy and of what is unholy. This was why the practice was so strictly forbidden in those days. But after the Lord's Coming when external rites were abolished and so representatives came to an end, such things ceased after that to be converted in heaven into corresponding representatives. For when a man becomes internal, and has been informed concerning internal things, external things are of no importance to him. He is now aware of what holiness really is, namely, charity and faith deriving from it. Things with him which are external he now regards from the viewpoint of charity and faith, that is to say, he looks to see how much charity and faith in the Lord external things contain. This is why since the Lord's Coming heaven has looked at mankind not from the viewpoint of external things but of internal. And if anyone is looked at from the viewpoint of those things that are external it is because he dwells in simplicity, and in innocence and charity within that simplicity. These are present with him from the Lord in external things, that is, in his external worship, though he himself is not actually aware of this.