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Matteo 12

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1 IN quel tempo, Gesù camminava, in giorno di sabato, per li seminati; or i suoi discepoli ebber fame, e presero a svellere delle spighe, ed a mangiarle.

2 E i Farisei, veduto ciò, gli dissero: Ecco, i tuoi discepoli fan quello che non è lecito di fare in giorno di sabato.

3 Ma egli disse loro: Non avete voi letto ciò che fece Davide, quando ebbe fame, egli e coloro ch’erano con lui?

4 Come egli entrò nella casa di Dio, e mangiò i pani di presentazione i quali non gli era lecito di mangiare, nè a coloro ch’eran con lui, anzi a’ sacerdoti soli?

5 Ovvero non avete voi letto nella legge, che nel tempio, i sacerdoti, ne’ giorni del sabato, violano il sabato, eppur non ne sono colpevoli?

6 Or io vi dico, che qui vi è alcuno maggior del tempio.

7 Ora, se voi sapeste che cosa è: Io voglio misericordia e non sacrificio, voi non avreste condannati gl’innocenti.

8 Perciocchè, il Figliuol dell’uomo è Signore eziandio del sabato.

9 POI, partitosi di là, venne nella lor sinagoga;

10 ed ecco, quivi era una uomo che avea la mano secca. Ed essi fecero una domanda a Gesù, dicendo: È egli lecito di guarire alcuno in giorno di sabato? per poterlo accusare.

11 Ed egli disse loro: Chi è l’uomo fra voi, il quale avendo una pecora, se quella cade in giorno di sabato in una fossa, non la prenda, e non la rilevi?

12 Ora, da quanto più è un uomo, che una pecora? Egli è dunque lecito di far del bene in giorno di sabato.

13 Allora egli disse a quell’uomo: Distendi la tua mano. Ed egli la distese, e fu resa sana come l’altra.

14 Ma i Farisei, usciti fuori, presero consiglio contro a lui, come lo farebbero morire.

15 Ma Gesù, conoscendo ciò, si ritrasse di là; e molte turbe lo seguitarono, ed egli li guarì tutti.

16 E divietò loro severamente, che nol palesassero;

17 acciocchè si adempiesse ciò che fu detto dal profeta Isaia, dicendo:

18 Ecco, il mio Servitore, il quale io ho eletto; l’amato mio in cui l’anima mia ha preso il suo compiacimento; io metterò lo Spirito mio sopra lui, ed egli annunzierà giudizio alle genti.

19 Egli non contenderà, e non griderà; e niuno udirà la sua voce per le piazze.

20 Egli non triterà la canna rotta, e non ispegnerà il lucignolo fumante; finchè abbia messo fuori il giudizio in vittoria.

21 E le genti spereranno nel suo nome.

22 ALLORA gli fu presentato un indemoniato, cieco, e mutolo; ed egli lo sanò; talchè colui che prima era cieco, e mutolo, parlava e vedeva.

23 E tutte le turbe stupivano, e dicevano: Non è costui il Cristo, il Figliuol di Davide?

24 Ma i Farisei, udendo ciò, dicevano: Costui non caccia i demoni, se non per Beelzebub, principe de’ demoni.

25 E Gesù, conoscendo i lor pensieri, disse loro: Ogni regno, diviso in sè stesso in parti contrarie, è deserto; parimente, ogni città, o casa, divisa in sè stessa in parti contrarie, non può durare.

26 Ora, se Satana caccia Satana, egli è diviso in parti contrarie; come adunque può durare il suo regno?

27 E se io caccio i demoni per Beelzebub, per cui li cacciano i vostri figliuoli? Perciò, essi saranno i vostri giudici.

28 Ma, se io caccio i demoni per lo Spirito di Dio, il regno di Dio è pur pervenuto a voi.

29 Ovvero, come può alcuno entrar nella casa d’un possente uomo, e rapirgli le sue masserizie, se prima non ha legato quel possente uomo? allora veramente gli prederà la casa.

30 Chi non è meco è contro a me, e chi non raccoglie meco, sparge.

31 Perciò, io vi dico: Ogni peccato e bestemmia sarà rimessa agli uomini; ma la bestemmia contro allo Spirito non sarà loro rimessa.

32 Ed a chiunque avrà detta alcuna parola contro al Figliuol dell’uomo, sarà perdonato; ma a niuno che l’abbia detta contro allo Spirito Santo, sarà perdonato, nè in questo secolo, nè nel futuro.

33 FATE l’albero buono, e il suo frutto sarà buono; o fate l’albero malvagio, e il suo frutto sarà malvagio; poichè dal frutto si conosce l’albero.

34 Progenie di vipere, come potete parlar cose buone, essendo malvagi? poichè la bocca parla di ciò che soprabbonda nel cuore.

35 L’uomo buono, dal buon tesoro del cuore, reca fuori cose buone; ma l’uomo malvagio, dal malvagio tesoro del cuore, reca fuori cose malvage.

36 Or io vi dico che gli uomini renderanno ragione, nel giorno del giudizio, eziandio d’ogni oziosa parola che avranno detta.

37 Perciocchè, per le tue parole tu sarai giustificato, ed altresì per le tue parole sarai condannato.

38 ALLORA alcuni degli Scribi e Farisei gli fecero motto, dicendo: Maestro, noi vorremmo veder da te qualche segno.

39 Ma egli, rispondendo, disse loro: La malvagia, e adultera generazione richiede un segno; ma niun segno le sarà dato, se non il segno del profeta Giona.

40 Perciocchè, siccome Giona fu tre giorni, e tre notti, nel ventre della balena, così sarà il Figliuol dell’uomo tre giorni, e tre notti, nel cuor della terra.

41 I Niniviti risorgeranno nel giudizio con questa generazione, e la condanneranno; perciocchè essi si ravvidero alla predicazion di Giona; ed ecco qui è uno che è più che Giona.

42 La regina del Mezzodì risusciterà nel giudizio con questa generazione, e la condannerà; perciocchè ella venne dagli estremi termini della terra, per udir la sapienza di Salomone; ed ecco, qui è uno che è più che Salomone.

43 Ora, quando lo spirito immondo è uscito d’un uomo, egli va attorno per luoghi aridi, cercando riposo, e non lo trova.

44 Allora dice: Io me ne tornerò a casa mia, onde sono uscito; e se, quando egli vi viene, la trova vuota, spazzata, ed adorna;

45 allora va, e prende seco sette altri spiriti, peggiori di lui, i quali entrano, ed abitano quivi; e l’ultima condizione di quell’uomo diviene peggiore della prima. Così anche avverrà a questa malvagia generazione.

46 ORA, mentre egli parlava ancora alle turbe, ecco, sua madre, ed i suoi fratelli, fermatisi di fuori, cercavano di parlargli.

47 Ed alcuno gli disse: Ecco tua madre, ed i tuoi fratelli, sono là fuori cercando di parlarti.

48 Ma egli, rispondendo, disse a colui che gli avea ciò detto: Chi è mia madre, e chi sono i miei fratelli?

49 E distesa la mano verso i suoi discepoli, disse: Ecco la madre mia, ed i miei fratelli.

50 Perciocchè, chiunque avrà fatta la volontà del Padre mio, che è ne’ cieli, esso è mio fratello, sorella, e madre.

   


To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.

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Divine Providence # 231

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231. "Profanation of what is holy" means profanation by people who know the truths that their faith discloses and the good effects of caring taught by the Word, and who in one way or another acknowledge them. It does not mean people who have no knowledge of such things or who simply reject them out of irreverence. What follows, then, is about the former people, not the latter.

There are many kinds of profanation, some less serious and some more, but they boil down to the following seven kinds.

The first kind of profanation is committed by people who make light of the Word or use it lightly, or who do the same with the divine gifts of the church. Some people do this because of habitual immorality, pulling words and phrases out of the Word and including them in conversations of questionable quality, sometimes indecent ones. This necessarily involves some disrespect for the Word, when in fact the Word is divine and holy throughout and in every detail. At the heart of everything it says, there is something divine lying hidden; and it is through this that it is in touch with heaven. This kind of profanation is more or less serious, though, depending on the recognition of the Word's holiness and on the indecency of the conversation into which the supposed humorists inject it.

[2] A second kind of profanation is committed by people who understand and acknowledge divine truths but who violate them in their lives. This is less serious, though, if they simply understand the truths and more serious if they actually acknowledge them. All our discernment does is teach, much the way a preacher does. It does not automatically unite the teaching with our volition. Acknowledgment, on the other hand, does unite itself. There can be no acknowledgment unless our volition agrees. Still, this union may vary, and the severity of the profanation depends on the closeness of the union when our lives violate the truths that we acknowledge. For example, if we acknowledge that vengefulness and hatred, adultery and promiscuity, fraud and deceit, slander and lying, are sins against God and still commit them, we are guilty of this more serious kind of profanation. The Lord says, "The slave who knows the Lord's will and does not do it will be beaten severely" (Luke 12:48 [Luke 12:47]). Elsewhere, "If you were blind you would not have sin, but now you say that you can see, so your sin remains" (John 9:41).

Acknowledging things that are apparently true, though, is different from acknowledging things that are really true. If we acknowledge things that are really true and violate them with our lives, then in the spiritual world we seem to have no light or warmth in our voice and speech, as though we were completely listless.

[3] A third kind of profanation is committed by people who use the literal meaning of the Word to justify their evil loves and false principles. This is because the justification of falsity is the denial of truth and the justification of evil is the rejection of goodness; and at heart the Word is pure divine truth and divine goodness. In its outermost meaning, its literal meaning, this does not come out as real truth except where it tells about the Lord and the actual path of salvation. Rather, it comes out in those outer garments of truth that we may call "appearances of truth." As a result, this level of meaning can be persuaded to support all kinds of heresy; and if we justify our evil loves we do violence to things that are divinely good, while if we justify our false principles we do violence to things that are divinely true. This latter violence is called "the falsification of what is true," while the former is called "the adulteration of what is good." Both are meant by "blood" in the Word.

There is something spiritual and holy in the details of the literal meaning of the Word--the spirit of truth that emanates from the Lord. This holy content is damaged when the Word is falsified and adulterated. Clearly, this amounts to profanation.

[4] A fourth kind of profanation is committed by people who utter devout and holy words and whose voice and body language seem to express loving feelings, but who at heart neither believe nor love what they are pretending. Most of these are hypocrites and Pharisees. Everything true and good is taken from them after death, and they are dismissed into outer darkness. People of this sort who have also become fixed in their rejection of Divinity, the Word, and the holy gifts of the church sit in silence in the darkness, incapable of speech. They want to utter devout and holy words the way they did in this world, but they cannot, because in the spiritual world speech must be in accord with thought. Hypocrites, though, want to say what they do not really think. This gives rise to a resistance in the mouth, and the result is that they can only be silent.

However, there are less and more serious forms of hypocrisy depending on how resolute the opposition to God is, and on the outward arguments in favor of God.

[5] A fifth kind of profanation is committed by people who claim divine qualities for themselves. These are the people meant by Lucifer in Isaiah 14 "Lucifer" there means Babylon, as we can tell from verses 4 and 22 of the same chapter, which also tell of their fate. These are the same people who are described as a harlot sitting on a scarlet beast in Revelation 17:3.

There are many mentions of Babylon and Chaldea in the Word. "Babylon" means the profanation of what is good and "Chaldea" the profanation of what is true. In each case, it applies to people who claim divine qualities for themselves.

[6] A sixth kind of profanation is committed by people who accept the Word but still deny the divine nature of the Lord. These are the people known as Socinians and Arians in the world. Both kinds of person ultimately find themselves praying to the Father, not to the Lord. They pray constantly to the Father for admission to heaven (some also praying for the sake of the Son), but their prayers are in vain. Eventually, they lose all hope of salvation and are sent down into hell with people who deny God. These are the people meant by those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit, who are not forgiven in this world or the next (Matthew 12:32).

The reason is that God is one in both person and essence, comprising a Trinity; and this God is the Lord. Since the Lord is heaven as well, and since this means that the people who are in heaven are in the Lord, people who deny the Lord's divine nature cannot be granted admission to heaven and be in the Lord. I have already explained [28, 60-67] that the Lord is heaven and that therefore people who are in heaven are in the Lord.

[7] A seventh kind of profanation is committed by people who at first accept divine truths and live by them but later backslide from them and deny them. The reason this is the worst kind of profanation is that these people are mixing what is holy with what is profane to the point that they cannot be separated, and yet they need to be separated for people to be either in heaven or in hell. Since this is impossible for such individuals, their whole human volition and discernment is torn away from them and they become no longer human, as already noted [226, 227].

Almost the same thing happens to people who at heart acknowledge the divine contents of the Word and the church but submerge them completely in their own sense of self-importance. This is the love of being in control of everything that has been mentioned several times before [38, 112, 146, 215]. When they become spirits after death, they are absolutely unwilling to be led by the Lord, only by themselves; and when the reins of their love are loosened, they try to control not only heaven but even the Lord. Since they cannot do this, they deny the Lord and become demons.

It is important to realize that for all of us, our life's love, our predominant love, stays the same after death and cannot be taken away.

[8] This kind of profanation is meant by the lukewarm church described in the Book of Revelation: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. If only you were cold or hot! Since you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (Revelation 3:14, 15 [Revelation 3:15-16]). This is how the Lord describes this kind of profanation in Matthew: "When an unclean spirit leaves someone, it wanders in dry places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, 'I will go back to the home I left.' Then it does go back and finds it empty, swept clean and furnished for itself. It goes off and allies itself with seven other spirits worse than itself, and they come in and live there; and the latter times of that individual are worse than the earlier ones" (Matthew 12:43, 45 [Matthew 12:43-44, 45]). The departure of the unclean spirit describes our turning; and the return of the unclean spirit with seven worse spirits to the house made ready for them describes our turning back to our former evils once our true and good qualities have been banished. The profanation of what is holy is described by the profanation that makes our later times worse than our former ones.

The following passage from John means much the same: "Jesus said to the man who had been healed at the Pool of Bethesda, 'Do not sin any more, or something worse will happen to you'" (John 5:14).

[9] The following passage tells of the Lord's provision that we do not inwardly acknowledge truths and then backslide and become profane: "He has closed their eyes and blinded their hearts so that they do not see with their eyes or understand with their hearts and turn themselves, and I heal them" (John 12:4 [John 12:40]). "So that they do not turn themselves and I heal them" means so that they do not acknowledge truths and then backslide and so become profane. This is also why the Lord spoke in parables, as he himself explained--see Matthew 13:13. The Jewish prohibition against eating fat and blood (Leviticus 3:17; Leviticus 7:23, 25 [Leviticus 7:23, 26]) meant that they should not profane holy things. The fat meant what is divinely good and the blood what is divinely true. Once we have turned to what is good and true, we should remain turned to the end of our life, as the Lord tells us in Matthew: "Jesus said, 'Whoever will have remained faithful to the end will be saved'" (Matthew 10:22; likewise Mark 13:13).

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