Joel Chapter 1, the Internal Sense.

(From Swedenborg's work, "The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms")

(Verse 1) The Word has been perverted by false worship,

(2) when instead the Word should have been obeyed by everyone in the Church,

(3) and communicated to everyone who holds false beliefs that arise from evil loves.

(4) Instead, the spiritual things of the Church have been destroyed by sensualism.

(5) Now, remorse should be awakened, because of this loss of faith,

(6) a faith which has been destroyed by the lust of worshipping false gods,

(7) depriving the Church of spiritual truth and good.

(8) The Church should return to the Lord

(9) with inward mourning and contrition

(10) over the loss of good and truth in the natural and spiritual man -

(11) especially people who seek the good of the Church and who desire its genuine doctrine: for the Church is about to perish.

(12) Spiritual truth, its good, its knowledge, and its delights, which constitute the Church, are perverted.

(13) Only by repentance can communion with the Lord be renewed.

(14) The Church can only remove the evil and falsity by acknowledging and worshipping the Lord,

(15) for the end of the Church is near, when it will be judged.

(16) Good works are not being done, nor are there any people who delight in spiritual things.

(17) Natural good has been subordinated to evil, and the truth and good of the Word are rejected.

(18) Wherefore there is no good in the Church,

(19) and our hearts must be turned again to the Lord: for the love of self has corrupted all things in the church.

(20) Although truth is desired, it has been misappropriated to ourselves.

In the Bible (and in life), the idea of withering is usually connected to plants, and plants generally wither if they don't get enough water. Plants represent individual facts and thoughts, and water represents natural truth, or true concepts about life on an external level. To wither, then, generally means that disconnected ideas will not be remembered and will be useless if they are not sustained by deeper concepts that lead to good actions in life.

To wither, as in Psalm 1:3, means to dry up, or to lack good and truth. (Apocalypse Explained 419).

In Psalm 102:4, this signifies that the truths of good seemed to be dying. (Apocalypse Explained 403[6])

'Withering and drying up,' as in Ezekiel 17:10, referring to the east wind, signifies a state when there is no good or truth.

In Matthew 13:6, "wither" signifies the truths of good adulterated and dying. (Apocalypse Explained 401[35]).

Withering, as in Matthew 21:19, signifies the failing of truth and good in the natural. (Apocalypse Explained 403[21]).

(Odkazy: Arcana Coelestia 6693 [2], 6726, 8699, 8902 [6]; The Apocalypse Explained 518 [12], 627 [9])