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Daniel 9

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1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made·​·king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans;

2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood in the books the number of the years, of which the word of Jehovah was to Jeremiah the prophet, to fulfill seventy years for the wastings of Jerusalem.

3 And I set my faces to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes;

4 and I prayed to Jehovah my God, and made· my ·confession, and said, I pray Thee, Lord, the great and fearsome God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love Him, and to them that keep His commandments,

5 we have sinned, and have committed·​·iniquity, and have acted·​·wickedly, and have revolted, even by turning·​·aside from Thy commandments and from Thy judgments.

6 Neither have we hearkened to Thy servants the prophets, who spoke in Thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

7 To Thee, O Lord, is justice, but to us is shame on the faces, as at this day, to the men of Judah, and to those who dwell in Jerusalem, and to all Israel, near and far·​·off, in all the lands whither Thou hast expelled them, in their trespass by which they have trespassed against Thee.

8 O Lord, to us belongs shame on the faces, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, that we have sinned against Thee.

9 To the Lord our God belong compassions and pardon, for we have revolted against Him,

10 and we have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God, to walk in His laws, which He put before us by the hand of His servants the prophets.

11 And all Israel have crossed·​·over Thy law, and by turning·​·aside without obeying Thy voice; and the oath is poured·​·out upon us, and the promise that is written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, for we have sinned against Him.

12 And He has raised·​·up His words, which He spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, to bring upon us great evil; for under all the heavens has not been done as has been done in Jerusalem.

13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us; and we implored not the face of Jehovah our God, to turn·​·back from our iniquities, and have·​·intelligence in Thy truth.

14 And Jehovah has watched over the evil, and brought it over us; for just is Jehovah our God concerning all His deeds which He does, and we obeyed not His voice.

15 And now, O Lord our God, who hast brought· Thy people ·out from the land of Egypt with a firm hand, and hast made for Thee a name, as this day, we have sinned; we have acted·​·wickedly.

16 O Lord, according·​·to all Thy justice, I pray Thee, let Thine anger and Thy fury be turned·​·back from thy city Jerusalem, the mountain of Thy holiness, for in our sins, and in the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people have become a reproach to all who are around us.

17 And now, our God, hearken to the prayer of Thy servant, and to his supplications, and cause Thy face to give·​·light upon Thy sanctuary that is desolate, because·​·of the Lord.

18 O my God, incline Thine ear, and hear; open Thine eyes, and see our desolations, and the city upon which Thy name is called; for we do not cause our supplications to fall before Thee on·​·account·​·of our justice, but on·​·account·​·of Thy many compassions.

19 O Lord, hear; O Lord, pardon; O Lord, attend, and do; delay not, for Thine own sake, O my God; for Thy city and Thy people are called by Thy name.

20 And as·​·long·​·as I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and causing my supplication to fall* before Jehovah my God, for the holy mountain of my God,

21 and I was still speaking in prayer, and the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being made faint with faintness, touched me about the time of the evening gift·​·offering.

22 And he understood, and spoke with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come·​·out to make· thee ·intelligent with understanding.

23 At the beginning of thy supplications the word went·​·out, and I have come to tell, for desired art thou; and understand the word, and understand the sight.

24 Seventy weeks are determined on thy people and on thy holy city, to complete the transgression, and to finish the sins, and to atone·​·for iniquity, and to bring eternal justice, and to seal the vision and the prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.

25 And know and have·​·intelligence: from the going·​·out of the word to return and to build Jerusalem until the Messiah the Monarch shall be seven weeks, and sixty and two weeks; the avenue shall return and be built, and the ditch, but in the anguish of the times.

26 And after sixty and two weeks shall Messiah be cut·​·off, but not for Himself; and the people of the monarch that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and her end of it shall be with an overflow, and to the end of the war desolations are decided.

27 And yet* He shall make the covenant with many to prevail for one week; but at the half week He shall cause the sacrifice and the gift·​·offering to cease, and on the winged bird of detestable things shall be desolation, and even·​·to the complete end, and decision shall be poured·​·out on the desolation.

   


Thanks to the Kempton Project for the permission to use this New Church translation of the Word.

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Moses

  

At the inmost level, the story of Moses -- like all of the Bible -- is about the Lord and his spiritual development during his human life as Jesus. Moses's role represents establishing forms of worship and to make the people obedient. As such, his primary representation is "the Law of God," the rules God gave the people of Israel to follow in order to represent spiritual things. This can be interpreted narrowly as the Ten Commandments, more broadly as the books of Moses, or most broadly as the entire Bible. Fittingly, his spiritual meaning is complex and important, and evolves throughout the course of his life. To understand it, it helps to understand the meaning of the events in which he was involved. At a more basic level, Moses's story deals with the establishment of the third church to serve as a container of knowledge of the Lord. The first such church -- the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam and centered on love of the Lord -- had fallen prey to human pride and was destroyed. The second -- the Ancient Church, represented by Noah and the generations that followed him -- was centered on love of the neighbor, wisdom from the Lord and knowledge of the correspondences between natural and spiritual things. It fell prey to the pride of intelligence, however -- represented by the Tower of Babel -- and at the time of Moses was in scattered pockets that were sliding into idolatry. On an external level, of course, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through 40 years in the wilderness to the border of the homeland God had promised them. Along the way, he established and codified their religious system, and oversaw the creation of its most holy objects. Those rules and the forms of worship they created were given as containers for deeper ideas about the Lord, deeper truth, and at some points -- especially when he was first leading his people away from Egypt, a time before the rules had been written down -- Moses takes on the deeper representation of Divine Truth itself, truth from the Lord. At other times -- especially after Mount Sinai -- he has a less exalted meaning, representing the people of Israel themselves due to his position as their leader. Through Moses the Lord established a third church, one more external than its predecessors but one that could preserve knowledge of the Lord and could, through worship that represented spiritual things, make it possible for the Bible to be written and passed to future generations.