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Genesis 8

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1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.

4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.

5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:

7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.

8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;

9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.

10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;

11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.

12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.

13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.

14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.

15 And God spake unto Noah, saying,

16 Go forth of the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.

17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.

18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him:

19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.

20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 848

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848. When the temptations are over, there is as it were a fluctuation, and if the temptation was spiritual, it is a fluctuation between what is true and what is false, which may be sufficiently evident from this, that temptation is the beginning of regeneration; and as all regeneration has for its end that man may receive new life, or rather that he may receive life, and from being no man may become man, or from dead be made living, therefore when his former life, which is merely animal, is destroyed by temptations, he cannot but fluctuate between what is true and what is false. Truth is of the new life, falsity of the old; and unless the former life is destroyed, and this fluctuation takes place, it is impossible for any spiritual seed to be sown, because there is no ground.

[2] When however the former life is destroyed and such fluctuation results, the man scarcely knows what is true and good, and indeed scarcely whether there is any such thing as truth. Thus, for example, when he reflects about the goods of charity, or, as they are called, good works, and considers whether or no he can do them from himself and have merit in himself, he is in such obscurity and darkness, that when informed that no one can do good from himself or from his Own, and that still less can anyone possess merit, but that all good is from the Lord, and all merit is His alone, he must be lost in wonder. And so it is in all other matters of faith; but still the obscurity and darkness of his mind become sensibly and gradually enlightened.

[3] It is with regeneration exactly as with man’s birth as an infant. His life is then very obscure; he knows almost nothing, and therefore at first receives only general impressions of things, which by degrees become more distinct as particular ideas are inserted in them, and in these again still more minute particulars. Thus are generals illustrated by particulars, so that the child may learn not only the existence of things, but also their nature and quality. So it is with everyone who emerges out of spiritual temptation; and the state of those in the other life who have been in falsities and are being vastated, is also similar. This state is called Fluctuation, and is here described by “the waters receding, going and returning.”

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