259. The Word is like a garden - it ought to be called a heavenly paradise. In that garden there are delicacies and pleasures of every kind. There are delicacies made with the different kinds of fruit and pleasures to be had from the flowers. In the middle of the garden there are trees of life with fountains of living water next to them. Surrounding the garden are the trees of a forest.

People who have divine truths because they have a body of teaching are in the middle of the garden where the trees of life stand. These people actively enjoy the garden's delicacies and pleasures. People who have truths from the literal meaning but no body of teaching are in the surrounding area; all they see are the things in the forest. People whose body of religious teaching is false and who have become inwardly adamant about that falsity are not even in the forest; they are outside it on sand flats where not even grass will grow. In fact, this is the actual condition in which they find themselves after death, as the work Heaven and Hell has shown.