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Éxodo 25

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1 Y JEHOVA habló á Moisés, diciendo:

2 Di á los hijos de Israel que tomen para mí ofrenda: de todo varón que la diere de su voluntad, de corazón, tomaréis mi ofrenda.

3 Y esta es la ofrenda que tomaréis de ellos: Oro, y plata, y cobre,

4 Y jacinto, y púrpura, y carmesí, y lino fino, y pelo de cabras,

5 Y cueros de carneros teñidos de rojo, y cueros de tejones, y madera de Sittim;

6 Aceite para la luminaria, especias para el Aceite de la unción, y para el sahumerio aromático;

7 Piedras de onix, y Piedras de engastes, para el ephod, y para el racional.

8 Y hacerme han un santuario, y yo habitaré entre ellos.

9 Conforme á todo lo que yo te mostrare, el diseño del tabernáculo, y el diseño de todos sus vasos, así lo haréis.

10 Harán también un arca de madera de Sittim, cuya longitud será de dos codos y medio, y su anchura de codo y medio, y su altura de codo y medio.

11 Y la cubrirás de oro puro; por dentro y por fuera la cubrirás; y harás sobre ella una cornisa de oro alrededor.

12 Y para ella harás de fundición cuatro anillos de oro, que pondrás á sus cuatro esquinas; dos anillos al un lado de ella, y dos anillos al otro lado.

13 Y harás unas varas de madera de Sittim, las cuales cubrirás de oro.

14 Y meterás las varas por los anillos á los lados del arca, para llevar el arca con ellas.

15 Las varas se estarán en los anillos del arca: no se quitarán de ella.

16 Y pondrás en el arca el testimonio que yo te daré.

17 Y harás una cubierta de oro fino, cuya longitud será de dos codos y medio, y su anchura de codo y medio.

18 Harás también dos querubines de oro, labrados á martillo los harás, en los dos cabos de la cubierta.

19 Harás, pues, un querubín al extremo de un lado, y un querubín al otro extremo del lado opuesto: de la calidad de la cubierta harás los querubines en sus dos extremidades.

20 Y los querubines extenderán por encima las alas, cubriendo con sus alas la cubierta: sus caras la una enfrente de la otra, mirando á la cubierta las caras de los querubines.

21 Y pondrás la cubierta encima del arca, y en el arca pondrás el testimonio que yo te daré.

22 Y de allí me declararé á ti, y hablaré contigo de sobre la cubierta, de entre los dos querubines que están sobre el arca del testimonio, todo lo que yo te mandaré para los hijos de Israel.

23 Harás asimismo una mesa de madera de Sittim: su longitud será de dos codos, y de uu codo su anchura, y su altura de codo y medio.

24 Y la cubrirás de oro puro, y le has de hacer una cornisa de oro alrededor.

25 Hacerle has también una moldura alrededor, del ancho de una mano, á la cual moldura harás una cornisa de oro en circunferencia.

26 Y le harás cuatro anillos de oro, los cuales pondrás á las cuatro esquinas que corresponden á sus cuatro pies.

27 Los anillos estarán antes de la moldura, por lugares de las varas, para llevar la mesa.

28 Y harás las varas de madera de Sittim, y las cubrirás de oro, y con ellas será llevada la mesa.

29 Harás también sus platos, y sus cucharas, y sus cubiertas, y sus tazones, con que se libará: de oro fino los harás.

30 Y pondrás sobre la mesa el pan de la proposición delante de mí continuamente.

31 Harás además un candelero de oro puro; labrado á martillo se hará el candelero: su pie, y su caña, sus copas, sus manzanas, y sus flores, serán de lo mismo:

32 Y saldrán seis brazos de sus lados: tres brazos del candelero del un lado suyo, y tres brazos del candelero del otro su lado:

33 Tres copas en forma de almendras en el un brazo, una manzana y una flor; y Tres copas, figura de almendras en el otro brazo, una manzana y una flor: así pues, en los seis brazos que salen del candelero:

34 Y en el candelero cuatro copas en forma de almendras, sus manzanas y sus flores.

35 Habrá una manzana debajo de los dos brazos de lo mismo, otra manzana debajo de los otros dos brazos de lo mismo, y otra manzana debajo de los otros dos brazos de lo mismo, en conformidad á los seis brazos que salen del candelero.

36 Sus manzanas y sus brazos serán de lo mismo, todo ello una pieza labrada á martillo, de oro puro.

37 Y hacerle has siete candilejas, las cuales encenderás para que alumbren á la parte de su delantera:

38 También sus despabiladeras y sus platillos, de oro puro.

39 De un talento de oro fino lo harás, con todos estos vasos.

40 Y mira, y hazlos conforme á su modelo, que te ha sido mostrado en el monte.

   

Ze Swedenborgových děl

 

Conjugial Love # 75

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75. The first account:

When I was once meditating on conjugial love, my mind was seized with a desire to know what that love was like among the people who lived in the golden age, and afterwards what it was like among those who lived in the following ages which are named after silver, copper, and iron. And because I knew that all those people who lived well in those ages are now in heaven, I prayed to the Lord to be allowed to speak with them and be instructed.

Then suddenly an angel stood beside me, and he said, "I have been sent by the Lord to be your guide and companion. First I will guide and accompany you to the people who lived in the first age or period, which is called golden." He also added, "The way to them is difficult. It lies through a dark forest which no one can pass through without being given a guide by the Lord."

[2] I was in the spirit, and so I readied myself for the journey, and we turned our faces to the east. And as we went I saw a mountain, whose height extended beyond the level of the clouds.

We crossed a great desert, and we came to a forest thick with trees of various kinds and dark on account of their density, as the angel had predicted. However, the forest was intersected by many narrow paths, but the angel said they were all winding ways leading astray, and that, unless a traveler's eyes were opened by the Lord to see the olive trees covered with leafy vines and to make his way from olive tree to olive tree, he would wander off into infernal regions which surrounded the forest on each side. "This is what this forest is like," the angel said, "in order to guard the approach, for none but the earliest people dwell on that mountain."

[3] After we entered the forest, our eyes were opened, and here and there we saw olive trees entwined with vines, which had bunches of purplish-blue grapes hanging from them. Moreover, the olive trees were arranged in a continuous series of circles. Consequently we went around and around as each one came to view, until finally we saw a grove of tall cedars, with some eagles on their branches.

Seeing them the angel said, "We are now on the mountain, not far from its summit."

We went on, and lo, beyond the grove, there was a circular field, where male and female lambs were grazing, which were forms representative of the state of innocence and peace of the people who dwelt on the mountain. We crossed this field, and suddenly tents appeared - tent after tent - reaching many thousands in number, in front and on each side, as far as the eye could see.

And the angel said, "We are now in an encampment. Behold the army of the Lord Jehovih! That is what they call themselves and their dwellings. When these most ancient people lived in the world, they dwelled in tents. Therefore they also live in tents now. But let us turn our way southward - where the wiser ones among them are - to find someone to talk with."

[4] As we went, I saw in the distance three boys and three girls sitting at the entrance of one of the tents. But when we drew near, they looked like men and women of average height.

And the angel said, "All the inhabitants of this mountain appear at a distance like little children, because they are in a state of innocence, and early childhood is the way innocence appears."

Seeing us, the men hurried over to us and said, "Where are you from, and how did you get here? Your faces are different from the faces of our mountain."

But the angel answered and told them how we were able to pass through the forest and the reason for our coming.

Hearing this, one of the three men invited us into his tent and led us inside. The man was dressed in a blue-colored robe and a tunic of very white wool. And his wife was dressed in a purple dress, with a blouse underneath of embroidered fine linen.

[5] Then because I had in my thought the desire to learn about the marriages of the most ancient peoples, I looked by turns at the husband and wife, and I observed a seeming unity of their souls in their faces.

So I said, "You two are one."

The man replied, "We are. Her life is in me, and my life is in her. We have two bodies, but one soul. The union between us is like the union of the two tabernacles in the breast which are called the heart and the lungs. She is my heart and I am her lungs. But since when we say heart here we mean love, and when we say lungs we mean wisdom, therefore she is the love of my wisdom, and I am the wisdom of her love. Therefore her love outwardly clothes my wisdom, and my wisdom is inwardly within her love. Consequently, as you have said, the unity of our souls appears in our faces."

[6] Then I asked, "If such is the union between you, are you able to look upon any other woman than your own?"

He replied, "I can, but because my wife is united to my soul, the two of us look together, and then not a trace of lust can enter. For when I look at other men's wives, I look at them through the eyes of my wife, who is the only one I am in love with. And because she, as my wife, can perceive all my inclinations, she acts as an intermediary and directs my thoughts, taking away anything discordant and at the same time inspiring a coldness and horror towards anything unchaste. As a result it is impossible for us here to regard any of our companions' wives with lust - as impossible as it would be to look at the light of our heaven from a state of infernal darkness. We have no mental concept among us, therefore, and not even any word in our speech for the temptations of libidinous love." He could not say free love, because the chastity of their heaven resisted it.

My angel guide then said to me, "You hear, now, the speech of the angels of this heaven, that it is a speech of wisdom, because they speak in terms of causes."

[7] After this I looked around, and seeing that their tent appeared covered with gold, I asked why this was.

The man replied that it was due to the flaming light, which glittered like gold. "It shines and strikes the curtains of our tent," he said, "whenever we are engaged in conversation on the subject of conjugial love. For the heat from our sun, which in its essence is love, then bares itself and tints the light, which in its essence is wisdom. It tints it with its own color, which is golden. This occurs because conjugial love in its origin is the interplay of wisdom and love, for man was born to be a form of wisdom, and woman to be a form of love for the wisdom in a man. From this come the delights of that interplay in conjugial love, and therefore between us and our wives.

"We here have seen, for thousands of years, that those delights become more excellent and exalted in abundance, degree and strength, according to the worship of the Lord Jehovih among us. That heavenly union or that heavenly marriage which exists between love and wisdom infuses itself as a result of that worship."

[8] When he said this, I saw a great light on a hill at the center amid the tents, and I asked where that light was coming from.

The man said, "It is coming from the sanctuary of our tabernacle of worship."

I then inquired whether we might go there, and he said we could. So I went, and I saw a tabernacle which, outside and in, exactly fit the description of the tabernacle which was built for the children of Israel in the wilderness, whose form was shown to Moses on top of Mount Sinai (Exodus 25:40, 26:30). And I asked what there was inside the sanctuary that was giving off so much light.

He answered, "There is a tablet, which bears the inscription, 'The Covenant Between Jehovah and Heaven.'" That was all he said.

[9] Then, because by that time we were getting ready to leave, I asked, "When you lived in the natural world, did any of you live with more than one wife?"

He replied that he did not know one person who did. "For we could not think of having more," he said. "Those who had had such thoughts told us that their states of heavenly bliss instantly receded from the inmost depths of their souls to the outmost parts of their bodies, even into their fingernails, and along with them the virtues of manhood. When others perceived this, they were exiled from our lands."

Having said this, the man hurried to his tent and returned with a pomegranate containing a number of seeds made of gold. He gave it to me and I took it away with me, as a memento to me that we had been with people who had lived in the golden age.

So then, after saying farewell, we departed and returned home.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.