6730. 'To wash at the river' means worship involving the use of falsity. This is clear from the meaning of 'washing' as purification from what is understood spiritually by filth, dealt with in 3147, worship consequently being meant since worship takes place for the sake of purification; and from the meaning of 'the river', in this case the river of Egypt, as falsity, dealt with in 6693.

2117. THE LAST JUDGEMENT

Few nowadays know what the Last Judgement is. They imagine that it is going to be accompanied by the destruction of the world; and this leads to conjectures that this earth, together with everything else in the visible world, is going to be destroyed by fire. They also conjecture that then for the first time the dead will rise again and appear for judgement, and the evil are to be cast into hell and the good to rise up to heaven. These conjectures are based on the prophetical parts of the Word where references are made to a new heaven and a new earth, and also to a New Jerusalem. Such people do not realize that the prophetical parts of the Word have a meaning altogether different in the internal sense from what appears in the sense of the letter, and that 'heaven' is not used to mean heaven, nor 'the earth' to mean the earth, but the Lord's Church in general, and as it exists with each individual in particular.