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Deuteronomy 25

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1 If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

2 And it shall be, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down, and to be beaten before his face, according to his fault, by a certain number.

3 Forty stripes he may give him, and not exceed: lest, if he should exceed, and beat him above these with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee.

4 Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.

5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.

6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.

7 And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.

8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;

9 Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house.

10 And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

11 When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:

12 Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

13 Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small.

14 Thou shalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.

15 But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

16 For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God.

17 Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt;

18 How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God.

19 Therefore it shall be, when the LORD thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.

   

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occurs often in the Word, and often signifies the questionings of one who, through false thinking about the spiritual things of the church, has become merely natural. (True Christian Religion 502)

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True Christian Religion # 502

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502. Anyone, who through false ideas about the spiritual matters of the church has become natural, cannot help thinking of God's omnipotence as being above order, and so of God's omnipotence as having no order. This is why he falls into crazy ideas like these. Why did the Lord come into the world and why did He redeem it like this, when God by His omnipotence could have achieved the same result from heaven as He did upon earth? Why by His redemptive act did He not save the whole human race with no exceptions, and why was the devil afterwards able in the case of a person to overpower the Redeemer? Why is there a hell? Could not God by His omnipotence have wiped it out, and could He not do so now? Or could He not bring everyone out of hell and make them angels in heaven? Why is there a Last Judgment? Could He not move all the goats on the left to the right and make them sheep? Why did He cast down the angels of the dragon and the dragon himself from heaven, and not change them into Michael's angels? Why does He not give both parties faith, imputing to them the righteousness of the Son, and so forgive their sins, justifying and sanctifying them? Why does He not give the animals of the earth, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea the power of speech, together with intelligence, and bring them along with human beings into heaven? Why did He not make, or why does He not still make, the whole earth into a Paradise, where there should be no tree of the knowledge of good and evil, no serpent, and where all the hills were running with fine wines, producing gold and silver, both in nuggets, so that all there might live amid rejoicing and song, in a constant round of festivities and pleasures, like images of God? Would not such things befit an omnipotent God? And much more of the same sort.

But, my friend, this is all nonsense. God's omnipotence is not devoid of order. God Himself is order; and because all things were created from God, they were created from order, in order and with a view to order. The order which man was made to partake in is that his blessing or his cursing should be dependent upon his free will in spiritual matters. For, as I said before, without free will man could not have been created, nor could even animals, birds and fish. But animals enjoy only natural free will; man enjoys natural and spiritual free will as well.

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