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Exodus 23

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1 Thou shalt not take·​·up a vain rumor. Put not thy hand with the wicked to be a witness of violence.

2 Thou shalt not follow after many to do evils; and thou shalt not answer upon a dispute to turn·​·aside* after many to cause others to turn·​·aside.

3 And thou shalt not honor a poor man in his plea.

4 When thou shalt come·​·upon thine enemy’s ox, or his donkey, going·​·astray, returning thou shalt return it to him.

5 When thou shalt see the donkey of him who hates thee couching under his burden, and wouldest desist from removing it for him, removing thou shalt remove it with him.

6 Thou shalt not distort the judgment of thy needy in his plea.

7 Keep thee far from a false word; and the innocent and the just, kill thou not; for I will not justify the wicked.

8 And thou shalt not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have their eyes open, and perverts the words of the just.

9 And a sojourner shalt thou not oppress; and you know the soul of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

10 And six years thou shalt sow thy land, and shalt gather her increase.

11 And in the seventh thou shalt release it*, and shalt abandon it; and the needy of thy people shall eat; and what remains of them the wild·​·animal of the field shall eat. So shalt thou do to thy vineyard, and to thine olive trees.

12 Six days thou shalt do thy deeds, and on the seventh day thou shalt cease; so·​·that thine ox and thine ass may rest; and the son of thy maidservant, and the sojourner, may refresh· their ·soul.

13 And all that I have said to you, you shall keep; and you shall not make·​·mention of the name of other gods; it shall not be heard upon thy mouth.

14 Three times* thou shalt celebrate to Me in the year.

15 The festival of unleavened things shalt thou keep; seven days thou shalt eat unleavened things, as I commanded thee, at the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou wentest·​·out from Egypt; and My faces shall not be seen empty.

16 And the festival of the harvest, of the firstfruits of thy works, which thou sowedst in the field; and the festival of ingathering, in the going·​·out of the year, when thou gatherest in thy works from the field.

17 Three times in the year shall every male of thine be seen before the faces of the Lord Jehovah.

18 Thou shalt not sacrifice the blood of My sacrifice on what is leavened; and the fat of My festival shall not pass·​·the·​·night until the morning.

19 The first of the firstfruits of thy ground thou shalt bring·​·into the house of Jehovah thy God. Thou shalt not cook a kid in the milk of its mother.

20 Behold I send an angel before thee, to guard thee in the way, and to bring thee to the place which I have prepared.

21 Take·​·heed of his face, and obey his voice, lest thou make· him ·bitter; for he will not bear your transgression; for My name is in his midst.

22 For if hearing thou shalt hear his voice, and do all that I speak, I will be·​·an·​·enemy against thine enemies, and I will be·​·an·​·adversary against thine adversaries.

23 When My angel shall go before thee, and shall bring thee to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I shall cut· him ·off.

24 Thou shalt not bow·​·down thyself to their gods, and shalt not serve them, and shalt not do according·​·to their deeds; for breaking·​·down thou shalt break· them ·down, and breaking thou shalt break their statues.

25 And you shall serve Jehovah your God, and He shall bless thy bread, and thy waters; and I will remove sickness from among thee.

26 There shall not be one miscarrying, or barren, in thy land; the number of thy days I will·​·fulfill.

27 I will send My terror before thee, and I will rout all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will give to thee the neck of all thine enemies.

28 And I will send the hornet before thee, and it shall drive·​·out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.

29 I will not drive· him ·out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the wild·​·animal of the field become many against thee.

30 By a·​·little and a·​·little I will drive· him ·out from before thee, until thou be·​·fruitful, and inherit the land.

31 And I will put thy border from the Suph sea*, and even·​·to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness even·​·to the river; for I will give into your hand those who dwell·​·in the land; and I will drive· them ·out from before thee.

32 Thou shalt not cut a covenant with them, and with their gods.

33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against Me, that thou serve their gods; for it will be for a snare to thee.

   


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

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Arcana Coelestia # 9278

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9278. 'Six days you shall do your work' means a state of labour and conflict, when a person is governed by external delights that must be joined to things that are internal. This is clear from the meaning of 'six days' that come before the seventh, as states of labour and conflict, dealt with in 737, 900, 8510, 8888, 8975, the labour and conflict during them being meant by 'the work' that will be done on those days. 'The work' done during the six days and 'the rest' on the seventh day mean the things experienced by a person in his first state and in his second while being regenerated, and also those experienced by him after he has been regenerated. Regarding a person's first and second states while he is being regenerated, see above in 9274; and regarding the things experienced by him after he has been regenerated, 9213. The purpose of these experiences is that external things may be joined to internal ones; for there is an external man, which is also called natural, and there is an internal man, which is called spiritual. The external man is in contact with the world, and the internal with heaven.

[2] Divine order demands that heaven should rule the world with a person and not the world rule heaven with him; for when heaven rules a person, the Lord rules him, but when the world rules a person, the hells rule him. The natural disposition which a person is born with is such that he loves the world and self more than heaven and the Lord; and since this is the opposite of Divine order, an inversion must take place through regeneration. It takes place when the things that belong to heaven and the Lord are loved more than those which belong to the world and self. This is the reason why a person who has been regenerated, and also one who is in heaven, passes through two states that alternate with each other, in one of which external things prevail and in the other internal ones prevail; for by means of this alternation of states the external things are brought into agreement with the internal and at length made subordinate to them.

[3] When the external things prevail the person experiences labour and conflict; for he is immersed in the kind of life which savours of the world and into which the hells enter from every side, unceasingly endeavouring to engage in molestation, indeed to exercise control over the things of heaven with the person. But the Lord unceasingly protects and delivers him. This is the reason for the labour and conflict which are meant by the six days of the week in which work must be done. When however the internal things prevail, then - because the person is in heaven with the Lord - the labour and conflict come to an end, and he enjoys peace and serenity, in which also a joining together takes place. These blessings are what are meant by 'the seventh day'. The more internal aspects of the human being have been created in the image of heaven and the more external in the image of the world, so that the human being is a miniature form of heaven, also of the world, thus a microcosm, as the ancients called him, see 6057. So it is that Divine order demands that the Lord coming by way of heaven should rule the world with a person, and not at all vice versa.

[4] The nature of the labour and conflict experienced by the person when external things prevail may be recognized from this, that his state at that time is such that he is stirred by the world and indifferent towards heaven, unless it appears to him as the world does. But then the light by which he sees is so dim that he can only suppose that external things flow into internal ones, consequently that the eye sees or the ear hears by itself, that objects seen or heard by them are what produce thoughts and shape the understanding part of the mind, and that this gives him the ability to believe in and love God all by himself, and so to see heaven from the world. He cannot be easily led away from this illusion until he has been raised from external things to internal ones, and so to the light of heaven. Then he begins to perceive that things belonging to the world with him, thus those belonging to the body and its senses, see and act by means of influx from heaven, that is, from the Lord coming by way of heaven, and not at all by themselves. This goes to show why it is that a person thinking on the level of the senses supposes that his life is derived entirely from the world and the natural order, that there is no hell nor any heaven, and finally that there is no God. As a consequence he derides everything of the Church so far as he himself is concerned but is all in favour of it so far as the simple are concerned, as the means in addition to laws to keep them in check.

[5] From all this people may know what is meant by a situation in which external things prevail and not at the same time internal ones, and that when external things prevail a person feels indifferent towards what belongs to heaven or what belongs to the Lord and sees it in only dim light. They may also know who exactly in the world are the intelligent and wise, namely those who are governed by the Church's truth and good because they are recipients of wisdom from heaven, and who exactly are the stupid and foolish, namely those who are not governed by the Church's truth or good because the world is their only source of knowledge. And those among them who use worldly knowledge to set themselves firmly against the Church's truth and good are more foolish and stupid than the rest, no matter how much they suppose themselves to excel others in intelligence and wisdom and call people simple if they lead a good life based on the truths taught by doctrine. But such people's simplicity is wisdom in angels' eyes; and after death they are raised by the Lord into angelic wisdom.

[6] The Lord also teaches that this is so, in Matthew,

Therefore I speak in parables, because those who see do not see, and those who hear do not hear, nor do they understand. Matthew 13:13-14.

In John,

I will send the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. Yet a little while, the world will see Me no longer. John 14:17, 19.

The world's inability to receive the Spirit of truth 'because it neither sees Him nor knows Him' means that it will not acknowledge the Lord with faith in the heart, because external things belonging to the world will obscure [Him]. This being so, is there anyone at the present day who worships Him as the Lord of the whole of heaven and of earth, Matthew 28:18? Yet all who are in heaven, and so with whom internal things prevail, see the Lord as their only God.

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