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Genesis 1

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1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 And the earth was a void and emptiness, and darkness was on the faces* of the abyss. And the Spirit of God brooded* upon the faces of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God distinguished between the light and the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first Day.

6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let there be a distinguishing between waters as·​·to the waters.

7 And God made the expanse, and distinguished between the waters which were from under the expanse and the waters which were from upon the expanse; and it was so.

8 And God called the expanse Heavens. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered·​·together to one place, and let what is dry appear; and it was so.

10 And what was dry, God called Land, and the gathering·​·together of the waters He called Seas; and God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, Let the land cause the sprout to sprout·​·forth, the herb seeding seed, and the fruit tree making fruit according·​·to its kind, in which is its seed, upon the land; and it was so.

12 And the land brought·​·forth the sprout, the herb seeding seed after its kind, and the tree making fruit, whose seed was in itself, after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

13 And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be* lights in the expanse of the heavens, to distinguish between the day and the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.

15 And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give·​·light on the earth; and it was so.

16 And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.

17 And God put them in the expanse of the heavens, to give·​·light on the earth;

18 and to rule in the day, and in the night, and to distinguish between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

19 And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters cause the crawling thing*, the living soul, to crawl; and let the fowl fly above the earth on the faces of the expanse of the heavens.

21 And God created the great whales, and every living soul that creeps, which the waters caused to crawl after their kinds, and every winged fowl after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be·​·fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and the fowl shall be multiplied in the earth.

23 And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the land bring·​·forth the living soul after its kind; the beast, and the creeping thing, and the wild·​·animal of the land, after its kind; and it was so.

25 And God made the wild·​·animal of the land after its kind, and the beast after its kind, and every creeping thing on the ground* after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, according·​·to our likeness; and let them have·​·dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the beast, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

28 And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be·​·fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue her; and have·​·dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over every living·​·thing that creeps on the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I give to you every herb seeding seed which is on the faces of all the earth, and every tree in which is fruit; the tree seeding seed, to you it shall be for food;

30 and to every wild·​·animal of the land, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth in which is a living soul, every green herb shall be for food; and it was so.

31 And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.


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

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

True Christian Religion # 490

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490. It is plain from the first chapter of Genesis that everything created by God was good. It says there that 'God saw that it was good' (verses 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), and at the end 'God saw everything that He made, and behold, it was very good' (verse 31). It is also plain from man's primeval state in paradise. Evil, however, arose from man, as is plain from Adam's second 1 state, that is, after the fall, by his being expelled from paradise. It is clear from these facts that if free will in spiritual matters had not been given to man, God Himself, and not man, would have been the cause of evil; in this case God would have created both good and evil, and it is wicked even to think that God created evil too. The reason why God did not create evil, since He bestowed on man free will in spiritual matters, and never puts any evil into his mind, is that He is good itself, and in good God is omnipresent, continually urging and demanding to be received. Even if He is not received, still He does not go away. For if He did, man would instantly die, or rather dissolve into non-existence, since man gets his life, and the continued existence of all he consists of, from God.

[2] Evil was not created by God but introduced by man, because man turns the good which continually flows in from God into evil, by turning away from God and turning towards himself. When this happens, the pleasure given by good remains, but it now becomes the pleasure given by evil; for without an apparently similar pleasure being left man would cease to live, since it is pleasure which makes up the vital principle of his love. These two pleasures are still diametrically opposed, though a person is unaware of this so long as he lives in the world. After death, however, he will know this and indeed feel it plainly, for then the pleasure given by the love of good is turned into heavenly blessedness, but the pleasure given by the love of evil into the torments of hell. These arguments prove that everyone is predestined to heaven, and no one to hell; but it is the person who commits himself to hell by misusing his free will in spiritual matters. As a result he embraces the ideas wafted from hell, since, as was said above, everyone is held mid-way between heaven and hell, so that he can be in equilibrium between good and evil, and consequently have free will in spiritual matters.

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